Born in Morning Sun, Ohio, near Oxford, Karl Anderson became a magazine illustrator and noted impressionist painter of genre, mythology, symbolism, and still life, much influenced by his exposure in Europe to painters in that style.

He was the son of a harness maker and saddler and the brother of famous playright, Sherwood Anderson. He first took art lessons from a local house painter in Clyde, Ohio, where the family moved in 1884. Seven years later he went to Cleveland where he worked for a photographer, doing retouching, and also took night classes in crayon portraiture.

Shortly after, he enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago with John Vanderpoel and James Earle Fraser. He worked as an illustrator t...