José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker.

Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism movement as a prominent member of the Generación de la Ruptura (English: Breakaway Generation).

He was a mostly self-taught artist, whose styles and influences are moored to the darker side of life, often depicting distorted figures and the debasement of humanity.

He had remained a controversial figure throughout his career, not only for his often shocking images, but also for his opposition to writers and artists who he feels participate in corruption or create only for money.

In 1992, the José Luis Cuevas Museum was opened in the historic center of Mexico City holding most of his work and his personal art collection.

[2][3] 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.

[3] At age fourteen, he rented a space on Donceles street to use as a studio instead of returning to school as his poor health meant that did not know how long he might live.

He worked on illustrations for The News,[4] and despite his lack of formal training, he taught art history classes at Coronet Hall Institute.

[4] He claimed that José Chávez Morado, Guillermo González Camarena and the "Frente Popular de Artes Plasticas" were envious of him and that they accused him of working with the CIA in the 1950s when he was coming out after mainstream artists.

[2][4] Despite his predictions that he would live to over a hundred because various tarot readings had told him so,[9] Cuevas died on July 3, 2017, in Mexico City at the age of 83.

[4] Despite being married, he gained a reputation as a womanizer, nicknamed “gato macho” (male cat) or seducer of women, which he took advantage of to promote himself.

[13] In 2000, Berta Riestra, his wife and, at the time, the director of the José Luis Cuevas Museum, died due to breast cancer and leukemia.

The house was built for Cuevas in the 1970s by architects Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro González de León in a style reminiscent of Luis Barragán.

While the house is clean and orderly, the space dedicated as his studio is messy, strewn with books, old machinery, a telescope, mirrors, many photographs and more.

[4] In 1979 Jose Luis exhibits 50 watercolors and drawings along with illustrated letters at Tasende Gallery, La Jolla, California.

[2] Other exhibitions from the 2000s include in 2005 "Jose Luis Cuevas in Drawing and Sculpture" at the Latin American Art Museum in Long Beach, California.

In 2006, he inaugurated the Paseo Escultórico Nezahualcóyotl with a sculpture named after his wife called “Carmen.” Retrospective Exhibition at the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City in 2008.

“Exposición Siameses 50 Años de la Plástica del Maestro José Luis Cuevas” in 2009 and 2011 and “Dibujo y Escultura” in 2010.

[2][5] In 1970, he presented Crime by Cuevas at the Primera Bienal del Grabado Latinoamericano in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

[9][14] Cuevas was born and raised in a country which has produced major innovators in the fine arts, and he himself became a symbol of both the continuity of this tradition as well as a permanent break with the past.

[8] In particular, Cuevas was an early and very outspoken critic of the muralist movement led by the then-dominant artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

[3][16] His opposition to the status quo and his aggressive art style caused him trouble at times, including violent public outcry to his work, written insults, personal threats and even once having had his own house attacked with a machine-gun.

[14][17] His initial opposition to the Mexican cultural status quo was with the muralists, calling them and the government that supported them the “nopal cactus curtain,” acting against newer artists and innovations.

Later, with the help of Carlos Fuentes he published in "Museo en la Cultura" ("Museum in Culture"), a supplement of Novedades newspaper, where he continued his critique towards the Mexican muralist movement.

[16] Themes in Cuevas’ work tend to be bleak, grotesque, enveloped in anguish and fantasy, with human figures distorted to the point of uniqueness.

[15][16]" Cuevas stated that he drew a skull as he considered them devoid of expression and they are not necessarily representative of death in Mexican culture.

[18] His predilection for the darker side of life along with breaking with tradition has meant belated acceptance for his work in certain circles of the art market.

[2] He gave what is now known as “Zona Rosa” its name, located in the then cosmopolitan section of Colonia Juarez, stating that "Es demasiado ingenua para ser roja, pero demasiado frívola para ser blanca, por eso es precisamente rosa" ("it's too naive to be red, but too frivolous to be white, that's why it is precisely pink.

[3] Cuevas' other honors of the 1980s included having his work exhibited at the 1982 Venice Biennial,[20][21] Premio Nacional de Arte from the Mexican government in the same year, and the International Prize from the World Council of Engraving in the United States.

[2][8] The museum is considered to be controversial in no small part due to the “Erotic Room," filled with Cuevas' own drawings on the theme and of actual bordellos and cabarets, and the presence of a large brass bed on which he claimed he had many sexual encounters.