Painter, Muralist. He depicted the human condition of his time with skill and passion and is considered one the best Modern Mexican muralists, not a small feat considering he had lost his right hand in an accident as a child and was extremely short-sighted, requiring thick lenses to see his works. He graduated as an agricultural surveyor before studying art at the Academy in 1906. From 1910 to 1916 he drew cartoons for the magazine El Hijo de Ahizote, was an illustrator on the staff of La Vanguardia and painted watercolors and oils. His first great portrait “The Last Spanish Forces Honorably Leaving the Castle of San Juan de Ullúa” was shown in 1915. In 1916, he presented his first individual exhibition at the Biblios library. In 1922 he painted murals in the patio of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and in 1925 in the Casa de Azulejos (House of Tiles) in Mexico City. In 1926 he painted murals at the Escuela Industrial in Orizaba, Veracruz. He lived in the United States from 1927 to 1934 and painted murals at the Fray Hall of Pomona College in Claremont, California (1920), New School for Social Research in New York, New York (1930), and the Baker Library of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. On his return to Mexico he painted a large work for the Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico (1934) and from 1936 to 1939 he worked in Guadalajara, where he painted the assembly hall walls of the University Campus, a huge portrait of Hidalgo with a lit torch on his hand, in the staircase of the City Hall, and 40 large frescos on the Hospicio Cabañas chapel. In 1940, he worked on the Gabino Ortiz Library in Jiquilpan, Michoacán. That same year he traveled to New York to paint a panel in the Museum of Modern Art. In 1941 he finished the frescos in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. From 1942 to 1944, he painted in the church of the Hospital de Jesús in Mexico City. From 1944 to 1946 he concentrated on easel paintings, portraits and ballet stage decorations. In 1947 he painted murals at the National School of Teachers and in 1948, in the Reformation Hall of the National Museum of History in the Castle of Chapultepec. He made engravings in 1935 and 1944, and lithography in 1926, 1928 to 1930 and 1932 to 1935. He was a founding member of the Colegio Nacional. In 1946 he won the Premio Nacional de Artes y Ciencias de Mexico. He died in Mexico City of a heart attack and was interned at the Rotunda de Hombres Ilustres, the first time that honor was bestowed on a painter.