Born in Santa Tecla, in 1920 he went to study in Mexico on an art scholarship then in 1922 traveled to France to join the throng of artists and writers from around the world who were living, working, and learning in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris.
Salazar became friends with Mexican writer/diplomat José María González de Mendoza and the Guatemalan writer Luis Cardoza y Aragón.
During World War II he went to Buenos Aires where he was employed as an illustrator and caricaturist at the socialist weekly magazine Argentina Libre.
Salazar published satires of Adolf Hitler, General Franco, Benito Mussolini and Argentina's rising star, Juan Perón.
In the early 1950s, the new El Salvador government of President Óscar Osorio gave Toño Salazar a diplomatic appointment in Montevideo.