Born in Oaxaca in 1883 Garcia Nuñez dedicated 64 years of his life to art. In 1901 he began studies at Mexico ’s renowned San Carlos Academy , where Diego Rivera started three years earlier. Garcia Nuñez studied under the great deaf-mute portraitist German Gedovius and the Catalan painter Antonio Fabrés, new to the faculty, who was experimenting with ways to bring photographic realism to still life painting. Inspired by the ideas of Fabrés, Garcia Nuñez took to painting landscapes.

He had his first exhibits in 1907 and 1909, and in 1911 he showed a notable collection of small canvases at the Academy. Interim Mexican president Francisco Leon de la Barra awarded him a grant to study in Europe . During this period he produced some oils that were altered to mimic the signature of noted Mexican landscape painter José María Velasco. Garcia Nuñez spent time in Barcelona , Madrid and Paris before returning in 1913 to Mexico in the midst of the Revolution.