Maria Sol Escobar (born May 22, 1930), otherwise known simply as Marisol, is a sculptor born in Paris of Venezuelan lineage, living in Europe, the United States and Caracas. Her education consisted of study at Jepson Art Institute, École des Beaux-Arts, the Art Students League of New York, and she was a student of Hans Hofmann, and at the New School for Social Research. The pop art culture in the 1960s found Marisol as one of its members, enhancing her recognition and popularity. Marisol concentrates her work on three dimensional portraits, using inspiration “found in photographs or gleaned from personal memories”. Marisol’s religious beliefs might very well have had a great deal of influence upon her tendencies toward and character for the arts. Her father moved Marisol, at age sixteen, and her brother (Gustavo Escobar) to Los Angeles after World War II and also their mother’s untimely death where Marisol began her study in the arts. She began practice in painting and drawing during her teen years. It was during these years she admitted self-inflicted acts of penance upon herself. She walked on her knees until they bled, kept silent for long periods and tied ropes tightly around her waist in emulation of saints and martyrs. It was Marisol’s father who reinforced her interest in art and supported Marisol in her decision to continue along its course. During her life Marisol's mother (Josefina Escobar) was a well known patron of the arts in Venezuela. Marisol studied in Paris, France in 1949, returning to study in New York in 1950.