Rodolfo Abularach, painter, draftsman, and printmaker, was born on 7 January 1933 in Guatemala City, Guatemala to Palestinian immigrant parents. He began his formal training in 1946 at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plàsticas in Guatemala City. He also studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and Pasadena City College in California.

Beginning in 1955, Abularach worked for two years at the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología where he drew pre-Colombian masks and musical instruments from the museum’s collection. In 1958, he earned a scholarship from Guatemala’s Directorate of Fine Arts which he used to study at the Art Students League in New York. Abularach received two Guggenheim Fellowships, one in 1959 and the other in 1960, which allowed him to stay in New York. He became interested in printmaking and with the support of the Organization of American States, he was able to study at Pratt Institute. In1966 he was invited to work at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles.

Abularach had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Central and South America. His works are represented in museum collections worldwide and, within the U.S., his works are included in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Norton Simon Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Rodolfo Abularach died in Guatemala City on August 30, 2020.