Germán Gedovius was born in Mexico City and spent his childhood in San Luis Potosí. He returned to the capital to study painting at the Academy of San Carlos, where he was a disciple of Pina and Flores. He later continued his studies in Germany, where he went to receive treatment for the deafness he had suffered since birth.

He won a gold medal for a self-portrait at the Munich Academy, executed in the style of 17th-century painting, and then toured Europe. On his return to Mexico he worked as a professor at the Academy, and had such outstanding students as Ángel Zárraga, María Izquierdo and Diego Rivera.

Gedovius was an artist who felt great nostalgia for the art of the past and tried to retake the old formalisms of Europe...