Painter, printmaker and teacher Ignacio Aguirre was born on December 23, 1900 in San Sebastián in Mexico’s Jalisco province. Politically active during the early 20th century, he found employment in the administrative branch of the Mexican government. During that period, Aguirre’s interest in art was inspired by the work of his friends Manuel Rodriguez Lozano and Julio Castellanos, and by Diego Rivera, with whom he studied in the 1920s.

A stint as a scenarist gave way to teaching drawing and painting beginning in the early 1930s. Aguirre was a founding member of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios in 1934 and of the Taller de Gráfica Popular in 1937. His work was exhibited in New York on several occasions in the 1940s and in eastern Europe in the mid-1950s. Aguirre died in Mexico City on July 11, 1990.