José María Mijares Fernández was born in Havana on June 23, 1921. He studied at the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts from 1936 to 1942. A year later one of his works was included in the First Anti-Fascist Salon along with the painting La Silla by Wifredo Lam and other painters. Mijares exhibited his first personal exhibition at the Hubert de Blanck National Conservatory, in Havana, and was part of the Modern Cuban Painters exhibition, which was hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His drawings illustrated Orígenes Magazine.

His main influences were Fidelio Ponce de León and Leopoldo Romañach Guillén, in addition to the painters Carlos Enríquez and René Portocarrero who also influenced his work. During 1958 and until 1961 he was a member of the group Ten Concrete Painters of Havana. As a member of the group, he began to experiment from a formal point of view, which is why he is considered a pioneer of geometric abstraction in Latin America. In his work he covered many genres and techniques, but screen printing was always a constant in his work. Between 1968 and 1973 he was a member of Grupo Gala in Miami and in 1970 he was the Art Director of Alacrán Azul Magazine in Miami.

He held many in Cuba and abroad: his first personal exhibition took place at the Hubert de Blanck National Conservatory, in Havana. Later, in 1947, he presented the exhibition Mijares at the Lyceum. He participated in various group exhibitions such as the XXIV Salón de Bellas Artes in February 1942, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Havana. In 1952 he was one of the guests at the XXVI Venice Biennale. In 1968 he was a member of Four Generations of Cuban Painters 1895-1940, at the Koubeck Memorial Center at the University of Miami. Among his exhibitions, in 1996, Mijares en grande stands out, at the Alfredo Martínez Gallery in Coral Gables, Miami.