Ernesto Garcia Peña graduated from the National School for Art Instructors in 1965, and from the National School of Art (ENA) in 1970, specializing in painting. In 1987 he graduated from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), specializing in engraving. He has been a professor of drawing at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana, and of drawing, engraving and painting at the National School of Art of Cubanacan, where he was also head of the department in these specialties. He has been a consultant for study programs and curriculums of drawing, and has collaborated with various book publishing houses throughout his career. He is a member of the Experimental Graphics Workshop of Havana, of the International International Association of Plastic Artists of UNESCO (AIAP) and of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

As a pupil of Servando Cabrera Moreno, the erotic in his paintings is undoubtedly one of the themes that more frequently the artist works. Garcia Peña’s work has seen to be reminiscent of not only his mentor Cabrera Moreno’s work but also that of Carlos Enriquez Gomez. Ernesto Garcia Peña continues a tradition of Cubanidad in his work, painting muscular, bulging horses, revolutionary fighters and other symbols acquainted with that which is Cuban in the early 20th century.