Duarte was born in 1952 in Caurio, Michoacán, Mexico. In 1977 he studied mural painting at the David Alfaro Siqueiros Workshop. He resides in Chicago since 1985, where he has participated in painting more than 45 murals. Duarte has shown his paintings and prints in solo and group shows in several museums, galleries and cultural centers in United States and Mexico, among them the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois State Gallery, the Historical Society of Chicago, the Cultural Center of Chicago, the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, and in the Diego Rivera Museum in Mexico City. Duarte has received several prizes, among them: one for the best public works in 1995 granted by the Chicago Bar Association, and in 1994 a scholarship of the National Endowment for the Arts NEA. Duarte is a co-fundator of the Julio Ruelas Workshop in Zacatecas, Mexico, The House of the Culture of Zamora’s Valley in Zamora, Michoacan, and of the Mestizarte Workshop in Chicago.