Andrew Loomis was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1892. He was one of the American painters who became well known in the 1930s and 1940s for their illustrations for magazines (such as Life) and advertisements. In addition to his career as a painter and illustrator, he taught at the American Academy of Arts in Chicago and wrote and illustrated two textbooks: Fun with a pencil (1939) and Figure Drawing for All It's Worth (1943).