Lumen Winter (Lumen Martin Winter) was born in Illinois in 1908. At a young age, his family relocated to western Kansas on a ranch located along the Santa Fe Trail. He studied at the Cleveland School of Art in Ohio and extensively in New York at the National Academy of Design, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Grand Central School of Art. He painted murals in post offices and public schools as part of the Federal Arts Project set up by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. He worked with Norman Rockwell on murals at the United Nations in New York City and the pair became lifelong friends. Winter opened his first New Mexico studio in Santa Fe in 1939.