Miguel Covarrubias published his first illustration in 1920. By the time he came to New York his drawings were already widely published in Mexico, Cuba and South and Central America. He studied with Mexico's leading critic and poet José Juan Tablada. His trip to New York was sponsored by the Mexican government and Tablada, who was already in NY, acted as a liaison between Mexico and the US for the newly arrived Covarrubias. In 1924 Vanity Fair published six of his caricatures and started an association that lasted until the magazine ceased publication in 1936. In 1926 he went to Paris and studied for the next year and a half. In 1930 he was awarded the Art Directors Club Medal in painting and drawing and in 1933 his work was shown at the Guggenheim and the Whitney Museum of American Art. That same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative work in painting in the Dutch West Indies (Bali). His work was published in Vogue after the demise of Vanity Fair and was used for several book jackets for Alfred A. Knopf. In 1940 he was awarded another Guggenheim Fellowship to write a book on the culture of Isthmus of Tehuantepec. He returned to Mexico in 1942 and began teaching at the School of Anthropology.