Robert MacDonald Graham was born November 1, 1919, in New Rochelle, New York. Because his father was a cavalry officer, he spent his childhood on remote military bases. At age sixteen, Graham left home to study at the Kansas City Art Institute. He was immediately taken in by Thomas Hart Benton. Benton selected five of his works for his 1940 exhibition of his students’ work Kansas City Regional Art, held at the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York. The gallery bought Graham’s painting Peaceful Evening, and New York critics praised his skill in rendering light.
After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1941, Robert MacDonald Graham enlisted in the Air Corps and served as a combat artist during World War II. He was in Nagasaki from September to November 1945, but few of his war works remain. He later enrolled at the Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten in Belgium, where he studied with painter Jules van Vlasselaer. Upon returning to the United States, Graham taught at the University of Texas, Austin, then returned to Kansas City to teach at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, in 1958.
