Mario Castillo is an American artist born in Mexico. He is credited with starting in the Midwest the Latino mural movement of the 1960’s. His first mural project was in 1964 at Lane Technical High School in Chicago. This school has fresco murals from the WPA era as well as many paintings from that period. Castillo was influenced by this context and the fact that he was aware of the three great Mexican muralists; Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros. He was also influenced by the Mesoamerican murals from ancient Mexico. Thus Mario Castillo was able to use his heritage as a stimulus to create his murals which were also based on Native American aesthetics.

Castillo was the first to have youth work with him in his early murals. This served as a prototype for many of the murals which followed. He was also the first to create an anti Viet Nam War mural in 1968, “Peace – Metaphysics” and the first multicultural mural in 1969, “Wall of Brotherhood”.

At Columbia College Chicago he initiated Mural Painting classes. He has also given mural workshops at various colleges in the states and at the University of Guadalajara, Ocotlan Campus, in Mexico.