Rafaél González y González (1907-1996) was a folk artist from San Pedro, Guatemala. He first got into painting from a lucky accident when he was showing his students how to color pita with aniline dyes. He was collecting sap that would be used as an adhesive, when purple dye had fallen in to the sap container. When he returned, he found that the white sap had turned purple, so he used the sap as paint and created a landscape painting on a piece of flour sacking. A passing tourist saw the picture and bought it for 50 cents, which was three times the daily wage of a laborer at the time. Over time, he would become a jack-of-all-trades, and would become known for his artistic abilities when he would letter posters, paint saints' images, decorate chapels and houses with religious dignitaries, etc. After leaving San Pedro due to a quarrel with a neighbor, he would live on a coffee plantation on the piedmont belt south of Lake Atitlan, then move to Chicacao. He would spend his spare time making coffins and painting on flour sacks with the sap-based aniline colors he previously used. His uncle would take 5-10 of the paintings and sell them for 8 or 10 dollars each to American officials working for the United Fruit Company. It was until the late 1940s where he would be discovered as an important primitive artist by Ernesto Hastedt. His wife would gift Rafaél oil paints and artist's brushes and Valentin Abascal, a painter in Chicacao, would show him how to mount canvases on stretchers and make frames. With support from the Hastedts and Jorge Ibarra, a Guatemalan naturalist, Rafaél would exhibit his pictures in many cultural and educational institutions in Guatemala City. His hopes of going to the United States would be prevented by General Miguel Ydígoras, who was president of Guatemala at the time, due to his objections of sending a ladino, or non-Indian, abroad. However, he was awarded the Cruz al Mérito Artístico at a special exposition in Guatemala City as a belated recognition of his status as the founder of the San Pedro school of painting in 1987. Then in 1988, he was honored as the originator of the popular painting style practiced by the Tz'utujil artists of San Pedro and Santiago Atitlan with a museum showing in Guatemala City. He passed away in 1996, however he had not been painting for years prior due to failing eyesight.