Early Life, Family and Artistic Training Bob Cato enters the world in 1923 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the son of Robert Bailey Cato, a business executive, and Ysabel Soto, a teacher who traveled from Cuba to the United States. The family's trajectory shifts when Bob Cato is fifteen. A trip to Mexico City places him in the presence of painters Pablo O’Higgins and José Clemente Orozco. Under their mentorship, the teenager begins h…