Born March 1, 1904, Salt Lake City, Utah. His father was a lawyer; his mother was a farm woman. 1907-1909 lived on father's ranch in El Cajon, California; attended primary school in Salt Lake City and high schools in San Diego and Salt Lake; 1922-23 studied in the Dan Diego Academy of Art, earning his living as a topographer's assistant. 1924: Decided to go to Mexico after seeing work of Diego River and Jose Clemente Orozco. 1925-27: Studied with Rivera and assisted him with murals at Chapingo and in the Ministry of Public Education.1929-30: participated in Cultural Mission to La Parrilla, Durango; taught drawing in primary schools, Mexico City. 1931: spent 6 months in New York, and held his first exhibition of paintings. 1931-32: studied in USSR on a scholarship from Moscow Academy of Art; returned to Mexico where he painted his first mural in 'Emiliano Zapata' primary school, Villa Madero. 1934-35: painted murals in Abelardo Rodriquez Market, Mexico City. 1936: painted collective murals in Talleres Graficos de la Nacion in Mexico City with Leopoldo Méndez, Alfredo Zalce and F. Gamboa. 1936: Sub-chief, Department of Graphics of the Museum of Industry, Mexico City. 1938-39: painted murals in 'Estado Michoacan'. 1939: exhibition of paintings, New York City. 1942: exhibition at Associated American Artists, New York. 1944-45: six months working in San Francisco shipyards. 1945: murals in Longshoreman's Union, Seattle Washington. 1946-47: returned to Mexico and painted murals in Maternity Clinic #1 of Social Security Institute (with Leopoldo Méndez). 1933-38: member of L.E.A.R. (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists). 1937: founding member of T. G. P. and co-editor of monograph on Jose Guadalupe Posada, published in Mexico by 'Mexican Folkways', Frances Toor, editor.