Charles Demuth was born and lived most of his life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As a child he was frail, and as an adult he suffered from severe diabetes. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall Academy and studied at the Drexel Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. As a young man he traveled to Paris where he became part of the avant-garde scene. Despite his ill health and decision to remain in Lancaster outside the artistic mainstream, Demuth was a prolific and successful painter. He received excellent reviews, sold many works, and was a member of the circle of American modern artists gathered around Alfred Stieglitz. Beginning in 1914 he spent summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, then a retreat frequented by members of the Greenwich Village artistic and literary communities. He was friends with playwright Eugene O'Neill and a founding member of the Provincetown Players, an amateur theatrical troupe consisting primarily of New York artists and intellectuals.
