José Luis Cuevas was born on February 26, 1934, to a middle-class family in Mexico City. He was born on the upper floor of the paper and pencil factory belonging to his paternal grandfather. When he was ten years old, he began studies at the National School of Painting and Sculpture "La Esmeralda", and he also started to illustrate newspapers and books. However, he was forced to abandon his studies in 1946 when he contracted rheumatic fever. The illness left him bedridden for two years. During this time, he learned engraving work taught by Lola Cueto of Mexico City College. As Cuevas' education was interrupted by illness, he was mostly a self-taught artist. Over time, he developed a unique aesthetic of paintings and sculptures depicting disfigured or disproportioned figures and portraits. He was part of the first generation of Mexican artists to have emerged after the Muralist movement, and a main figure of both the Generación de la Ruptura (Breakaway Generation) and Neo Figurativism. Cuevas represented Mexico in the 1982 Venice Biennale and later in 1986 came to Tamarind as part of the México Nueve project. During this time he created several lithographs of portraits and self-portraits in his signature style. Cuveas was a controversial figure for most of his life, often considered to be vain and obsessed with his own sickness and death. In 1992 he created a museum to himself in an old monastery. The artist and his museum, with his life and sexual prowess as its main topic, are both controversial. Despite his predictions that he would live to over a hundred because various tarot readings had told him so, Cuevas died on July 3, 2017, in Mexico City at the age of 83.