Born in Cambridge, the artist was educated at Berkhamsted, and studied art at Portsmouth and Southsea Schools of Art. He then attended Julius OLSSON's school in St Ives. Here he claimed to have learned virtually all that he knew about art.

In 1919 with two companions from St Ives, Reginald Guy KORTRIGHT and Hugh Percy HEARD, he went to Paris; together they set up a studio and studied figure painting from the nude. In 1923, on behalf of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, he wrote to a number of West Cornwall artists offering a commission to produce tourist poster designs. Most accepted the offer, and the groundbreaking series was created in 1924, which aroused great public interest. He is the author of St Ives: A Brush with Life (Seeley Service, 1969), his autobiography. Later he became President of the RI.