José Luis Cuevas was born in Mexico City in 1934. Although he calls himself self-taught, the artist has completed his studies at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda and later at the Teaching Institution University of Mexico City. His first exhibition was held at the Gallery Prisse (Mexico City) in 1953, but it was a year later when he won his greatest achievement so far and managed to sell all his work exhibited in the gallery Pan American Union, Washington.

In the fifties alongside a group of young artists, Cuevas became one of the most significant artists of the "Rupture's Generation", characterized by its opposition to social realism that dominated the Mexican art by the time. Through a series of articles published in the newspaper Novedades between 1957 and 1959, José Luis Cuevas presented his idea of artistic aesthetics, based on freedom of expression both the shape and the subject. This idea was defended by the young artists of the moment, that wanted to get away from the muralism and the message with political and social content.

In 1955 his work is shown at the Edouard Loeb Gallery, in Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, who bought two works from the exhibition. By then, Jose Luis Cuevas is internationally recognized as one of the great promoters of the neo figurative rebellion . Thanks to his overwhelming success, the author was invited to work in studios around the world, including the Tamarind Workshop in Los Angeles, California, Polígrafa in Barcelona in 1981 and the Workshop Kyron, México.

Cuevas' work is influenced by artists like Goya or Picasso as well as Posada or Orozco. During his career he has created several homages to his favorite artists and writers such as Dostoevsky, Kafka or Quevedo through his drawings and fine art prints. Cuvas defines his drawings as a representation of the loneliness of the modern man and his inability to communicate, for this reason he distorts and transforms the human figure, giving it a unique touch.

Cuevas has had many solo exhibitions worldwide, including the University of Texas in 1961, the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1970, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico in 1972 or the Museum of Modern Art in Paris 1976 and also his work has also won several awards and accolades like the First Prize in the International Drawing Biennial of Sao Paulo (1959), the first prize in the International Print Triennial in New Delhi I (1968), The Prize National Science and Arts of Mexico and was ordered Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic (1991).