He studied Art Nouveau for 35 years, for some of this time under the teaching of the artist Mark Rothko.
Amaya, 34 at the time, was discharged from hospital after receiving treatment of bullet grazes on his back.
Amaya also contributed to many galleries, and lectured and acted as a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In the early 1970s, when living in London, Mario Amaya was engaged in research for a proposed biography of Lee Miller (with which she co-operated), but the project came to nothing.
Amaya died from complications of AIDS on June 29, 1986, in hospital in Kensington and Chelsea, London,[1] at the age of 52.