Juan Grela was born in 1914 in San Miguel de Tucumán. In 1925 he settled in Rosario, the city where he died in 1992.
Since 1939 he participated in multiple individual and group exhibitions, as well as in salons in several provinces. He developed important work in the field of teaching in his home-workshop, where several generations of artists passed.
He received numerous awards, among which are the Rosario Prize and the Emilio Pettoruti Prize in Painting awarded by the National Fund for the Arts.
He was a member of the Popular Mutuality of Students and Plastic Artists of Rosario. He co-founded Grupo Litoral. In the formulation of his aesthetic-critical discourse, he took as a reference Antonio Berni, his initial teacher and father of Mutualidad, and Joaquín Torres García, from whom he learned the aesthetic-philosophical premises of Constructive Universalism that guided his production since the mid-1960s. 50s and during the 60s.
Among the awards he obtained, it is worth highlighting: Rosario National Hall Award (1941, 1942 and 1945); Municipal Council of Culture Acquisition Award, I Salón del Litoral (1942); National Intervention Acquisition Award of the Province of Santa Fe, Annual Salon of Rosarinos Artists (1944); Chamber of Deputies of the Province Acquisition Award, XXIV Annual Salon of Santa Fe (1948); Cecilia Grierson Award, XXXVIII National Salon of Buenos Aires (1948); Ministry of Justice Acquisition Award, XLI National Hall of Buenos Aires (1951); Frans Van Riel Award, XXXIX Hall of the Society of Watercolorists and Engravers (1957).
In August 2016, a series of selected drawings were presented at Diego Obligado Art Gallery, inaugurating the new space.