Herminio Feliciano Peña Aguilera (b. Silao, April 25, 1915 – Mexico City, May 16, 1982) was a Mexican painter and engraver. His work was recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and was a founding member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Grabadores. Life The son of a carpenter and a schoolteacher, Peña was born in Silao, Guanajuato but moved with his family to the Tlalpan borough of Mexico City in 1926. He completed primary school there, where his talent for drawing and painting was first recognized. As there was no middle school near the family’s home at the time, his mother enrolled him instead in the Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre, where he studied from 1928 to 1932 under Tamiji Kitagawa kitagawa and Francisco Díaz de León. He studied oil painting and printmaking, becoming exceptional at the latter. In 1930 he participated in the American Art Federation Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He also did work for at a children’s magazine called Pulgarcito, published by the Secretaría de Educación Pública. Peña died in Mexico City in 1982. Career Peña began his career in 1933 at age eighteen, receiving a grant, teaching art classes and his first individual exhibition at the Sala de Art of the Secretaría de Educación Pública. His teaching career spanned twenty six years, primarily at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" and the Escuela de Artes del Libro (Escuela de Artes Gráficas). Early in his career he moved to Xalapa, Veracruz and founded a painting school with Francisco Gutierrez and José Chávez Morado. The three also painted a 155m2 mural called Anti-fascismo at the Escuela Normal Superior in 1936. However, it was covered over because a female nude in Gutierrez’s section was considered obscene. In 1961, students at the school tried to recover the mural but the parts done by Peña were permanently destroyed. Other notable exhibitions include a work called “Autorretrato” in 1942 at the Galeria Espira, which first brought him widespread attention. From 1947 to 1979 he exhibited his works at the Galería de Arte Mexicana. In 1949, he was invited to exhibit individually for the inauguration of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, and as a member, exhibited there occasionally as well. Peña participated in the first Interamerican Painting and Engraving biennial in 1958 and in the Retrato mexicano contemporáneo in