Carlos Mérida (1891-1984) was one of the most important Latin American modernist painters of the twentieth century, whose distinctive synthesis of European modernism and indigenous Guatemalan and Mesoamerican imagery secured him a unique place in the history of the region's art. Born in Guatemala City, Mérida spent his first ten years in Guatemala before moving to France in 1901. Living in Paris for four years, Mérida was exposed to the leading avant-garde artists, including Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Kees van Dongen, and he witnessed firsthand the rise of modern art at its most transformative moment.

After returning to Guatemala in 1914, Mérida partnered with the sculptor Yela Gunther to launch a short-lived art movement for the indigenous people, an early expression of his lifelong commitment to bringing the visual heritage of Mesoamerica into direct dialogue with international modernism. Relocating again to Mexico, Mérida found a greater audience for his folk-themed paintings, receiving a commission to execute a mural for the Secretaría de Recursos Hidráulicos with the Mexican architect Mario Pani.

During his work with Pani, Mérida became captivated with a concept called plastic integration, involving the seamless combination of both art and architecture. During this period Mérida executed a mural for the Benito Juárez Housing Project, later destroyed by the Mexico City earthquake in 1985. Partnering in 1932 with the Mexican artist Carlos Orozco Romero, Mérida opened the Secretariat of Public Education's School of Dance, for which he painted several ballet scenes, expanding his artistic engagement into the closely related world of performance and movement.

A truly international artist, Mérida forged links between Guatemala, Paris, Mexico, and the United States. His mature paintings characteristically combine the geometric abstraction he absorbed from European modernism with the flat planes of color, textile-inspired patterning, and mythological subject matter of pre-Columbian and indigenous art. Mérida is represented in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Caracas.