Helen Escobedo (1934-2010) was born in Mexico City where she lived and worked. At the age of fifteen, she studied under Germán Cueto, a non-academic follower of Cubism and a key figure in the Mexican sculptural avant-garde of the 1950s. She later studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where she came into contact with sculptors such as Jacob Epstein, Ossip Zadkine and Heny Moore. Escobedo's work can be understood as an exploration of all the possibilities of the sculptural language, integrating environments, design, monumental sculpture, architecture, ephemeral art, and the human and social effects of placing bodies in space. A pioneer of ecological and feminist art in Mexico in the 1960s, she understood and practised sculpture as a truly expanded concept. In parallel, she played a prominent role in Mexican culture as director of the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes (MUCA), the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) and the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at UNAM.

Inaddition to over 35 solo and 100 group exhibitions, retrospectives of her work include the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (2010) and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey (2022). She has public works in Mexico City, Auckland, Jerusalem and New Orleans, and her work is part of numerous collections such as the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte and Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art; and MACBA, Barcelona.