John Carlton Atherton, painter, printmaker, illustrator and designer, was born on January 7, 1900, in Brainerd, Minnesota, and was raised in Spokane, Washington. He didn't pursue art until he was an adult, preferring outdoor recreation such as fishing. This early exposure to nature played a large part in his creative endeavors later in life. Atherton enlisted in the First World War at seventeen years-of age, serving briefly in the U.S. Navy before the war ended. Upon his discharge, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled in courses at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), supporting himself as a sign painter and dance hall musician.

In 1929, Atherton won a first-prize award of $500 from the Bohemian Club's annual exhibition, which he used to relocate to New York City. To support himself he worked as a commercial artist for various major corporations, and by 1936 he had established enough of a career to focus more on his fine art. His style was similar to Norman Rockwell's in its depiction of Americana. Atherton was equally interested in the struggles and the fortunes of everyday American people; however, he frequently placed familiar objects and people in vaguely surreal situations. He was also known for his nature-and sportsman-based tableaus. In 1943, he was in the American Realists and Magic Realists exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

Atherton’s reputation as a graphic designer was also on the rise by the late 1930s. In 1939, he was commissioned to design a poster for the New York World's Fair and, two years later, he won first place in the Museum of Modern Art's National Defense Poster Competition. By the 1940s Atherton enjoyed a successful career that included regular commissions from The Saturday Evening Post - for which he created over forty covers.

In 1948, as a member of the New York Society of Illustrators, Atherton was a co-founder of the Famous Artists School, a correspondence-based art institution that operates to this day. He moved to Arlington, Vermont around 1950, where he lived and worked until his death on 16 September 1952 as a result of a fishing accident while visiting New Brunswick, Canada.

Atherton’s work is represented in the collections of the Art institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Pittsburgh; the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.