Both Roy and his late wife, Irene were painters. They moved to Leucadia in 1949 from Chicago, where Roy had directed the Parnassus Gallery. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the University of Chicago.  Upon the death of Roy Soravia, his niece (who inherited his vast art collection) bequeathed the collection to the San Dieguito Art Guild to provide sales of his artwork to support the local art association of the San Dieguito area that Roy so loved.

As a painter dedicated to the Op Art movement of the 1950’s and 60’s much of Soravia’s work has been recognized by experts to be reminiscent of the paintings of highly regarded Victory Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Yaacov Agam.

His belief that the use of line, color and form is more important than the representation of a given subject. His paintings are optical art — a study of shapes and color. They are very well executed.

Soravia’s painstaking methods and great attention to color variations yielded work that are not only pleasing to behold but have the magical quality of changing before the viewer’s eye.

Soravia’s paintings have been exhibited in Chicago, Omaha, Davenport Museum, and in California at the Los Angeles County Museum , the San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla Atheneum Gallery at the University of California at San Diego and the Coronado School of Fine Arts.

Roy’s last painting was dated in the year 2000 and he died four years later at the age of 100.