He was born on December 29, 1896 in Santa Rosalía de Camargo, Chihuahua. He began his painting studies in 1908 while intermittently attending the Academia de San Carlos, an institution to which he joined regularly in 1911. In 1913 he entered the Santa Anita School of Open Air Painting and five years later he traveled to Europe, where he met Diego Rivera.

In 1921, during his stay in Barcelona, Spain, he wrote and published one of the founding texts for Mexican art of the first half of the 20th century, and in 1922, upon returning to Mexico, he joined the group of artists commissioned to carry out the mural iconographic program of the National Preparatory School. In 1966 he was awarded the National Arts Prize, awarded by the Government of Mexico.