Born in Santa Monica, California, Eduardo Carrillo (1937–1997) grew up in Los Angeles. In 1960, he studied for a year at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where he assisted with the restoration of a church altar and spent time studying the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, Giorgio de Chirico, El Greco, Diego Velázquez and other artists. Carrillo earned a BFA (1962) and MFA (1964) from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1966, he moved to his ancestral home in La Paz, Baja California, where he founded El Centro Regional de Arte to revive the area’s local artistic traditions. Three years later he returned to the United States and became active in the Chicano Movement. In 1970 he moved to Northern California for a teaching position at California State University, Sacramento, and was briefly part of the Royal Chicano Air Force artists’ collective forming at the college. In 1972, Carrillo joined the faculty at University of California, Santa Cruz where he was a founding member of Oakes College and professor of art.

In the early 1980s, working with Philip Brookman and Tomás Ybarra Frausto, he organized and directed the multiyear, statewide initiative, Califas: Chicano Art and Culture in California. The groundbreaking conference included lectures, exhibitions, oral histories, videos, workshops, and performances. This landmark event continues to inform and influence the way Chicano art and culture are understood and presented.