Artist. He is most remembered for his graphic art but was also a draughtsman and printmaker. He painted several colorful portraits of women and one of himself. As the principal illustrator of the “Revista Moderna” (“Modern Review”) magazine in 1885, he practiced a technical approach called Mexican symbolism. His entire family had artistic abilities. He was the son of Carmen Suarez and Don Miguel Ruelas, who was the director of the National School of Jurisprudence and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Porfirio Díaz, the President of Mexico. Following his father’s work, the family left his birthplace and relocated to Mexico City in 1876. He furthered his education at the Military College and the National School of Fine Arts. Around 1892, he departed his homeland and headed for Germany, where Romanticism would profoundly influence his drawings and prints, the most important element of his work as an artist. He studied four years at the University of Karlsruhe in Baden, Germany. While in Germany, he was inspired by the Swiss artist, Arnold Böcklin. He also traveled to Belgium, where he would have seen the works of Félicien Rops. Then he traveled to Paris, France where Mexican writer Justo Sierra commissioned him to learn the technique of etching used in engraving. Artistically, he was noted for creating etched images depicting his own face, incorporating black, twisted lines to give an impression of being tormented. His works can be described as dark, satanic with ghostly cadavers with nude women. In 1895, he returned to Mexico but spent the last three years of his life back in Paris. Having produced a small but highly inventive body of work, he died young from complications of his extravagant lifestyle and tuberculosis; this radical lifestyle has been compared by biographers to American poet, Edgar Allan Poe. He died in the Hotel de Suez on the Boulevard de Saint Michele. Knowing that he was dying, he chose his final resting place among other talented artists. His will stated that the plot should be next to the street so that he could hear the high heels of ladies walking down the sidewalk. Colleagues of his, Jorge Enciso and Don Jesus Lujan, commissioned Mexican sculpture Arnulfo Domínguez Bello to produce his grave marker, which took three years to complete. His granite marker has a nude maiden, who was made of white marble, positioned prone with her long-untidy hair flowing downward at the top of the marker and her eyes closed as if mourning the artist’s death. In 2007, his forgotten grave site was located in the recognition of the 100th anniversary of his death. An attempt to restore the marker and sculpture removed the beautiful patina of aging, yet cracks in the neck of the "Mourning Maiden" were successfully repaired. A number of his works are on display at the Museum of the City of Mexico and the Zacatecas Museum. His professional life with photos of his works have been documented in several books including in the 2008 one, “Julio Ruelas: The Lugubrious Traveler” by art critics Carlos Monsivais,Antonio Saborti, and Teresa de Comde.