Mariano Rodríguez, known as the painter of the roosters, was an artist and Cuban intellectual belonging to the so-called Second Cuban Artistic Vanguard. Self-taught, a member of the well-known School of Painting of Havana, Mariano was formed in the heat of the Mexican muralist movement, from which he would take important elements. His painting was always exuberant, dynamic and of strong contrasts of colors. Mariano practiced during his life a philosophy to which he remained faithful until the day of his death: "To live and to paint, to paint and to live".