(* 1923 in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela; † 2005 in Paris) became, after studying from 1942-47 at the Academy- of Fine Arts in Caracas, director of the School of Fine Arts in Maracaibo, Venezuela, a position he held from 1947-50. In 1950 he moved to Paris. In the early fifties Soto experimented in Paris with serial art and spatial effects produced on a flat surface. Beginning in the sixties interest in optical effects followed. In 1978 he taught as a lecturer at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. In 1994 he was appointed to a professorship at the Instituto Pedagógico de Caracas. In 1994 he accepted a teaching assignment at the Universidad Nacional Experimental de Guayana in Venezuela. Soto was an important representative of Kinetic Art.