Horace Robbins Burdick was born in East Killingly, Connecticut in 1844. Burdick went to Boston from Providence, Rhode Island in 1864 and finally settled in Malden, Massachusetts in 1886. Burdick began his art career in Providence in 1863, at the age of 19, where he was engaged in retouching and coloring photographs. Burdick attended the Union Hall School in Providence, The Lowell Institute in Boston, and the Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston.

In Boston to study and continue his art work, Burdick first did still-life paintings and then crayon portraits, finally turning to portraits in oil, for which he became famous. He also did a large number of landscapes in both oil and watercolor. The subjects range from New Hampshire's White Mou...