Born at sea just outside San Francisco, he spent his boyhood in Pasadena. Around 1900, he began his career as illustrator for the Los Angeles "Morning Herald." Following World War I , he lived in San Francisco until 1928 when he moved back to the Los Angeles area and was an instructor at the Chouinard Art Institute. Known as a Regionalist painter, he also did murals in Portland, Oregon, the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, and in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada. Basically he was self-taught. He died in Los Angeles.