Painter, interior designer, art collector, and antiques dealer Jesus Reyes Ferreira, known as "Chucho," was born in Guadalajara, state of Jalisco, Mexico on October 17, 1880, into a well-to-do family who collected antiques and art. Under the strict tutelage of his father, he was homeschooled through his primary grades. Upon reaching his teenage years, however, he abandoned schooling for an apprenticeship at a lithography shop, soon adding experience with a silversmith and a carpenter as well. He would frequent a local fireworks maker to watch them prepare fireworks frames and paint "Judas figures," meant to be ignited at Easter. These experiences, as well as his admiration for the work of Jose Posada and Jose Clemete Orozco, would be instrumental in his interest in art and design. Soon, he was employed as the window dresser of his local art supply store, which led to commissions for weddings, baptisms, and other large events.

Ferreira's interest in antiques, as well as his eye for interior design, paved the way to opening his own antiques shop in his family's house after the death of his father in 1911. It also hosted a small museum that showed pre-Colombian folks art and antiques, and was soon a hub for artists, poets, and other luminaries. To wrap the sold works, Ferreira draw and painted his own designs on sheets of tissue paper, inspired not only by Orozco and Posada, but by the European and Mexican Modernists including Siqueiros, Rivera, Kahlo, Picasso, and Chagall. These decorated tissue wrappers would eventually become popular enough on their own that clients began requesting to purchase them. While he gladly pursued this side work, he refused to call himself an artist or painter. He referred to his technique as "smeared colors" and his finished works as "papers." 

In 1938 Ferreira, who by then was fifty-eight years old, and several young men from upperclass families were charged with homosexuality and arrested. Seen as a kind of ringleader due to his age, Ferreira was beaten and forced to wear a sign that read "corruptor of youth." He sold his childhood home and moved to the Mexico City home of his sisters Antonia and Maria with the help of Frida Kahlo and Andre Breton. There, he was able to rebuild his antiques business and open his own studio, where he began working on his "papers" in earnest. The popularity of his painted works soon earned him a place in exhibitions in New York and London, as well as Guadalajara. In 1942 he was introduced to Marc Chagall who was in Mexico City to debut his first ever sets for a ballet, commissioned by the Ballet Theatre of New York's Leonide Massine. In honor of Chagall's visit, Ferreira brought a collection of his "papers" as a gift to the Russian artist he so admired. Chagall soon deemed Ferraira the "Chagall of Mexico," and remained with Ferreira as his guest for the duration of his stay.

Ferreira continued to exhibit internationally through the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s. He was given his first solo exhibition in 1967 at the Palacio de Belles Artes in Mexico City, and in 1973 he was given a retrospective in Guadalajara despite the ire he faced as a resident thirty-five years prior. In addition to his painted work, he collaborated with the architect Luis Barragan and others as a color and design consultant. In 1977, the year of his death, he was awarded the Jose Clemente Orozco medal by the Universidad de Guadalajara. 

Despit a prolific and culturally significant artistic career, Ferreira's work was never studied or catalogued with the same vigor as his peers, possibly because he wasknown as much for his antiques dealing and collection as he was for his art. However, forged copies of his work have often sold at high rates - a testament to his standing in the art world and a nod to the old adage, "Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." 

Jesus "Chucho" Reyes Ferreira died on August 6, 1977, in Mexico City.