1930

Born in Cádiz. His love of puppets began when he attended performances at the Teatro de la Tía Norica. He studied at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios.

1949

He moved to Madrid to study sculpture at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts. The final dissertation of his studies deals with pedagogical applications of puppetry.

1951-1953

He builds his first puppets with which he premieres the play Pascualín. He attends the show of Puppet Parade, a British company that shows him the technical possibilities of a professional puppet.

1953

His artistic activity is centred on the pedagogical field. In the school Santa María de las Nieves (1955-1980 and 1984-1990) he teaches through his modelling classes the construction of puppets.

At the closing of the school in the academic year 1955-1956, he staged the play Bastien and Bastienne by Mozart and every year until 1966, he staged a puppet show with the pupils and other people from the school, among them Luis Pereira, Juan del Amo, Eugenio Bustos, Mari Vega, Enrique Tablado and Matilde del Amo.

1962-1969

Marries Matilde. He takes part in the film Dulcinea by Vicente Escrivá and in Cabriola by Mel Ferrer, as well as in several advertising shorts.

1971

His students at the Santa María de las Nieves School, Carlos Rodríguez, Carlos Marqueríe and Juan Muñoz, suggest to him the possibility of performing outside the school with the company Marionetas de Francisco Peralta.

This company performs at universities and theatre and music festivals.

Exhibition of his puppets at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid together with performances of Bastien and Bastienne.

1975-1976

Takes part in the III Festival Internacional de Barcelona. With the Retablo de Maese Pedro he took part in the XXV Festival de Música y Danza de Granada, the centenary year of Falla, VII Semana de Música de Cámara de Segovia, VII Semana de Música de Cámara del Corpus Lucense; performing in all of them with the RTVE Spanish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Odón Alonso.

1980-1984

Teacher at the School of Arts and Crafts in Segovia. Together with his students, he premieres a new version of Romance de la Condesita. In 1982 he formalises the foundation of his company Marionetas Peralta del Amo where he joins his wife and daughters.

1984-1990

Returns to Santa María de las Nieves School. Numerous performances at international festivals.

1990

Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts.

1992

Anthological exhibition at the 10th Tolosa Festival.

1994

Exhibition at the World Puppet Festival in Charleville (France).

1998

The town council of Móstoles (Madrid) commissions a monument to the puppeteer.

2008

UNIMA Spain appoints Paco Peralta and Matilde del Amo as honorary members.

2009

He appears with his own voice in the Encyclopédie Mondiale de la Marionnette, alongside the leading puppeteers of all time.

2009-2013

He continues his research into new techniques to perfect the movement of the puppet.

2014

The Francisco Peralta Puppet Collection opens in Segovia on 4 March, in the recently refurbished Puerta de Santiago. This exhibition, of a permanent nature, has 38 pieces, donated by the master Peralta to the city of Segovia.

2017

Tribute to Francisco Peralta in his hometown, at the 34th edition of the International Puppet Festival of Cádiz.

The Museo del Títere de Cádiz permanently exhibits a photographic exhibition of the work of the Cadiz master Peralta, which since 2014 has been on display in Segovia, in the Puppet Collection that bears his name. 

2018

He died on 2 January at the age of 87 in Segovia, where he had taken up residence.

"‘Now that I've learned to keep my mind off the important things, now that I know better what I want and could do, now that I could do something important, I need energy that I no longer have. I have to give up certain illusions and leave them here so that someone else can continue them.
I can't ignore the feeling that is at the bottom of all art. In puppetry, the dramaturgy has to be foreseen in the act of creation because when I read a play I am imagining the dramaturgy, then I go to work in the workshop to give it form. After that comes a lot of coming and going of ideas, of things already rehearsed that I use in a different way.
The essence of theatre slips through our fingers. I'm always alone, with my doubts and I'm not sure at this stage what I've done. I still haven't been able to classify it, I only know that they are things that I'm not going to do again, but that they have helped me to do what I'm doing today. I only try to take my characters to the maximum capacity of expression and it is not only enough with mechanics, the rehearsal of the technique of the manipulation, you have to work it, to go without fear, to be able to make, if you want, that a puppet falls down in a natural way and be credible. This is very difficult, because apparently it has to be autonomous of the manipulator.  I am more and more worried about freshness and sometimes I do things that are too complicated and I say to myself: now we are going to start again from zero, to recover that freshness I had, which I want to pretend, even if it is not true.."

Francisco Peralta, 2013