This led to clashes with Félix Bernardelli, who had a painting and music school in Guadalajara and introduced Montenegro to Art Nouveau.

Through his cousin Amado Nervo, he was able to meet many of the social elite of Mexico City including José Juan Tablada, Manuel de la Parra and Justo Sierra.

His teachers included Leandro Izaguirre, Germán Gedovius and Alberto Fuster and his classmates were Diego Rivera, Ángel Zárraga, Francisco Goitia and Saturnino Herrán.

[6] He returned briefly to Mexico in 1910 but by 1913 he was back in Paris, for another six years, studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and collaborating with Rubén Darío for a magazine called Revista Mundial.

[6] When World War I broke out in 1914, he moved to Barcelona then to Mallorca accompanied by a painter named Gandara, where he painted and also made a living fishing.

[1] During his lifetime, Montenegro had good relationships with various writers including José Juan Tablada and Luis G. Urbina working with Revista Moderna.

In Mexico, he associated with a number of writers for a publication called Los Contemporáneos from 1928 to 1931 which included Carlos Pellicer, José Gorostiza and Salvador Novo.

[6] In 1919, he published a book of drawings called Vaslav Nijinsky: and interpretation of his work in Black-white and gold by Robert Montenegro.

[8][11] He was an early participant in the budding Mexican muralism movement, recruited by Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos and returning to Mexico in 1921.

[8] The first mural was done in 1922 called the Arbol de la Vida (Tree of Life) which alludes to the origin and destiny of man.

[9] In addition to the murals, Montenegro created two stained glass windows influenced by Mexican folk culture called the Jarabe Tapatío (Guadalajara dance) and the La Vendedora de Pericos (The parakeet seller).

First, Vasconcelos insisted that Montenegro change a depiction of Saint Sebastian, who was partially nude, androgynous and pointing a bow and arrow at the other central figure, a woman, stating it did not represent revolutionary values.

[11] Other early murals included América Latina done in 1924 at the library of the Universidad Iberoamericana, which is an allegory of Latin America in the form of a map.

Montenegro also painted Vasconcelos' private offices at the Secretaría de la Educación Pública and the Hermeroteca (magazine library) of the Universidad Nacional.

His work did not have the dramatic flair of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, who would become the main three figures in the movement.

In 1958, he painted a frieze called Apolo y las musas (Apollo and the muses) for the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara; however, because of poor installation, it collapsed in 1963.

These work would include portraits of painter Jesús Reyes Ferreira, Dolores del Río, Gustavo Baz Prada, Frida Kahlo, Enrique Asúnsolo, Elías Nandino, Genaro Estrada, José Rubén Romero, Carlos Chávez, Rufino Tamayo, Jesús Federico Reyes Heroles and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre.

[8] One of the projects that Montenegro did after his initial work with murals was the promotion of Mexican handcrafts and folk art, which he gained appreciation of while traveling Mexico.

[6] He did scenery work for the Teatro de Ulises and participating in the shooting of the film Qué viva México!, by Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein .

[3][6] His time in Europe gave him exposure to various influences from Symbolism, Art Nouveau and Cubism especially from Aubrey Beardsley, William Blake and Rubén Darío .

[3][7] However, much of is aesthetic is also drawn from Mexican handcrafts and folk art, such as traditional clothing from the south of Mexico and religious objects.