The Spanish painter, graphic artist and sculptor Jorge Castillo was born in Pontevedra in the Spanish province of Galicia in 1933. Only one year after his birth his family immigrated to Argentina for political reasons. Castillo spent his childhood and youth in Buenos Aires. He produced his first autodidactic artwork at a young age. After he had taken part in a competition in 1941 Castillo was admitted to the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts" in Buenos Aires. But he left the school a short time later because he did not agree with the school’s ideas. In 1955 Jorge Castillo returned to Spain, where he first lived in Madrid. During that time, he worked on Surrealistic ink drawings and gouaches. In 1959, the artist presented the drawings in his first exhibition at the Galería Altamira in Madrid.

In the early 1960s Castillo moved to Barcelona, followed by a two-year sojourn in Paris. With his move to Geneva in 1966, he had the opportunity to work with printed graphics. His work in Geneva was interrupted by long summer visits to Boissano on the Ligurian coast. His most important etching sequences such as "El mundo de Frederico García Lorca" (1972) and "Grands amants" (1973) were produced during the subsequent years.

After an incident with an American nuclear bomb above the Spanish village of Palomares, the artist was inspired to produce a monumental triptych composition. This piece brought him international recognition and had him invited to the Kassel "documenta" a year later. With a scholarship from the "Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst" Jorge Castillo went to Berlin in 1969, where he expanded his oeuvre, not to return to Barcelona until 1975.

Castillo has lived and worked in New York since 1989, where he was commissioned to create public sculptures in La Coruña, Messina and Barcelona. Jorge Castillo is lauded among the most important Spanish artist s of Surrealism and Informel. The artist has gained international recognition across Europe, South America and the United States. Since 1959, Castillo has received numerous awards. In 1964 and 1968, he contributed to the São Paulo and Venice Biennales. The artist’s work has been honored with awards such as the 1964 “I. Internationale der Zeichnung” and the 1975 Darmstadt Prize for Painting.