Manuel Rodríguez Lozano (Mexico City, 1891 - 1971) was born into an affluent family and entered the Military Academy in 1906. Although he pursued a diplomatic career, his marriage to Carmen Mondragón "Nahui Olin" led him to live in Paris. There, both developed an interest in art, and he developed a self-taught artistic practice.

He traveled through Europe between 1914 and 1921. After returning to Mexico, he worked as a drawing teacher at the SEP (Ministry of Public Education) and met Francisco Sergio Iturbide and Antonieta Rivas Mercado, key figures in his career. In 1940, he was appointed director of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National School of Fine Arts), and in 1941, he was unjustly accused of stealing four engravings from the Academia de San Carlos (San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts) which led to his imprisonment in the Lecumberri Penitentiary. There, he painted the mural La piedad en el desierto (Piety in the Desert), a space used by incarcerated individuals for prayer. After his release in 1942, Lozano began depicting elongated human figures in cold tones, with a focus on the theme of human suffering.