Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1936. Painter, printmaker, sculptor and draughtsman, he is currently recognized as one of the more intrepid and innovative exponents of Puerto Rican and Latin American abstract art.

He studied painting at the University of Puerto Rico, receiving his BA in 1958, and completed his MA at the American University in Washington, DC, in 1959. From the 1960s he was one of the most consistent advocates of abstract painting in Puerto Rico, and in 1977 he co-founded Frente with artists Lope Max Díaz, Antonio Navia and Paul Camacho, with the aim of bringing together abstract and experimental painters and of renewing artistic institutions in Puerto Rico. Hernández Cruz was also a founder-member and President of the Congress of Abstract Artists that took place in Puerto Rico in 1984.

His work has been exhibited in Spain, Finland, Brazil, South Korea, Yugoslavia, Norway, Columbia and the United States. He has received numerous recognitions including the First Prize for Urban Landscape from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 1963, the UNESCO of PR Prize in 1976 and the International Association of PR Art Critics Prize for an Individual Show in 1991.