His most well-known sculpture, El Gato del Río, is a famous landmark of Cali, Colombia.

[1] Hernando Tejada received the nickname of Tejadita, a diminutive of his last name, which alluded to the artist's relatively short stature of 1.50 meters tall.

[2] In 1937 his family moved to the city of Cali where he studied at the Departmental Institute of Fine Arts[3] with its founder and Professor Jesús María Espinosa and completed his studies at the National School of Fine Arts in Bogotá (today a part of the National University of Colombia).

[8] The theme for which Hernando Tejada is mostly known is his depictions of the domestic cat, a recurring subject of artistic interpretation throughout his career.

This series consists of functional objects such as chairs, tables, and musical instruments in the figure of a woman.

[12] Tejada incorporated women as the main theme in other artworks such as in paintings and smaller wooden objects.

In 1954, Hernando Tejada executed two mexican muralism-style fresco murals within the Railway Station in Cali.

[17] One of the murals, Historia de Cali (1954), depicts the history of the city of Cali with Tejada drawing attention to Calima culture natives, Sebastián de Belalcázar, and Simón Bolívar amongst other scenes that include religious, agricultural, and industrial aspects.

[26] Internationally, Tejada's work can be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York City.