The Cuban artist René Portocarrero was born in Havana in 1912 and died there in 1985. Originally self-taught, he started exhibiting in the mid-1930s. But it was in the 1940s that his main period began, with pictures featuring local landscapes, cathedrals, carnival figures, saints and devils.

His first international exhibition came in 1945 in New York. In the 1970s, he attracted something of a following in Japan. His paintings also form part of the permanent collections of art galleries in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Peru, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.