Rodolfo Abularach was born on January 7, 1933 in Guatamala City, Guatamala to Palastinian parents who had immigrated there. He attended the 'Escuela Nacional de las Artes Plasticas' in Guatamala City, where he studied abstract design from 1947 through graduation in 1954. In 1958 he studied in New York City on a Guatemalan government grant, studying at the Arts Student League and Graphic Arts center. In 1959 he received another scholarship to study at the Guggenheim in New York. At that point he moved to New York, where he continues to live.

Abularach began to explore surrealism and figurativism as applied to the MesoAmerican world of his youth. His later work from the 1960s through 1980s is characterized by the dramatic representation of the human eyes, a subject he felt allowed him to explore light and shadows, using all media, something he continued for almost 20 years. In the late 1980s he began to focus his interest on the landscape.

In 2010, the Rozas Botrán Foundation named Abularach as 'Artist of the Year' at the XII Intercontinental Art Festival in May 2010. His works were featured in a 2019 exhibition at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC.

Rodolfo Abularach died on August 30, 2020.