From 1910 to 1914 Mérida traveled in Europe, living mainly in Paris, where he studied art and became personally acquainted with such leaders of the avant-garde as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. At the start of World War I in 1914, Mérida returned to Guatemala, where he had his first one-man show. In 1919, interested in the social and artistic revolution in Mexico, he went to Mexico City and became involved in that nation’s mural-painting renaissance, working as an assistant to the painter Diego Rivera.