Charlot spent an extensive period of his life living and working in Mexico. In 1921, after his father died, he and his mother left Europe to settle in Mexico City. He met Fernando Leal (1896–1964) and shared his studio with him. Charlot was deemed "a fine person who is doing important work" by Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican painter and muralist. Rivera introduced Charlot to other young artists, such as Pablo O'Higgins (born Paul Stevenson Higgins and who came to live in Mexico in 1924, having grown up in Salt Lake City, Utah). O'Higgins would later recall that he met Charlot at the former's studio, when he was painting a nude of Luz Jimenez, a very beautiful Mexican Indian woman model to Diego Rivera. Luz's native language was nahuatl, which she taught to Charlot as she posed for him. Charlot and O'Higgins shared an interest in learning about Mexico and traveled together exploring the country, sometimes with Anita Brenner, a Jewish 19-year-old at that time with whom Charlot seemed in love and collaborated in several literary and illustration projects.