Tom Lovell was born in New York City in 1909 and died in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1997. At the age of seventeen, he shipped as a deckhand on the Leviathan and various other jobs followed. He went on further to enroll in the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University. During his senior year he produced oils for covers of pulp magazines along with eight to ten dry brush illustrations each month. After graduation, he continued to free lance for the pulp industry. In 1944, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and was assigned to an easel. In 1969, a commission for fourteen large paintings of southwestern history caused Lovell to shift his focus to the American West. In 1974, he won the National Academy of Western Art's Prix de West, was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and won the Franklin Mint gold medal for reproductions. He was a member of the Cowboy Artists of America.