He was a member of the 1910 Generation in Guatemala[1] Around 1921, after being disappointed of the Unionist Party that overthrew president Manuel Estrada Cabrera, and in which he had been actively involved in Quetzaltenango,[2] he moved to México, where he met Diego Rivera and came in contact for the first time with Maya art and Aztec art through the famous archeologist Manuel Gamio.

Over the years of Gambio's large anthropological and archeological project, besides Mexican scholars a group of intellectual from all over the world came to Teotihuacan and help him in several ways; Yela Günther was one of them, working for Gamio from 1921 to 1925.

[4] In that mayan city they made several stratigraphic wells that were later used by Alfred Kidder to work on the systematic excavation of the site.

[4] In 1930, Yela Günther went back to México as the cultural attaché of the Guatemalan Embassy and in 1935, the government of general Jorge Ubico appointed him as director of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas "Rafael Rodríguez Padilla" (Plastic Arts Academy «Rafael Rodríguez Padilla») where he worked until his death in 1942.

[6] Regarding his relationship with president Ubico there are diverse opinions; while Ubico was a despotic leader that did not tolerate any opposition but that was in search of all kinds of contemporary culture -such as Mexican Muralism at the time-, and Yela -after having spent a few years with Gamio- was more inclined to the ideals of the Mexican Revolution, art was one of the few means by which a Guatemalan could earn a decent living at the time.