Raúl Anguiano was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1915. At the age of 12, Anguiano attended Guadalajara's Free School of Painting. From 1928 to 1933, he studied with the Master painter José Vizcarra. In 1934 Anguiano moved to Mexico City where he began teaching in primary schools and taught drawing and painting. Anguiano is member of the Mexican Artistic Renaissance movement which was started in the 1920's. In 1936 he moved into his surrealist period, which lasted almost a decade

Anguiano was a Mexican painter of the 20th century, part of the “second generation” of Mexican muralists. His work is viewed as an expression of its time because of its undeniably Mexican flavour, and the link to his people is clear. Not only in his murals but also on canvas, etchings, pencil and ink drawings, lithographs and illustrations, and also more recently in sculpture and ceramics. Without compromising his personality or ethnic roots, and at the same time not allowing them to limit him As he continued his artistry with aspects of the Mexican muralism movement, he also experimented with other styles such as Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism, with themes such as clowns and prostitutes.

His first major exhibition was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, at age 20. Anguiano held his first solo exhibition, entitled "Raúl Anguiano and Máximo Pacheco" at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, in 1935; and in 1940 he took part in his first collective exhibition "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art". These were followed by more than 100 shows in many countries as Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, United States, France, Italy, the former Soviet Union, Israel, Germany and Japan