Born in Indiana in 1883, Clifton Wheeler studied in New York with William Merritt Chase, Kenneth Hayes Miller and Robert Henri. Following his studies, he returned to Indiana where he taught at the Herron Art Institute and Butler University. During the summer, he taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder (CU). He is known for his landscape paintings of Indiana, New York (Seneca Lake region and the Catskills), Colorado (Rocky Mountains), Tennessee (Smoky Mountains), North Carolina (Black Mountains) and the woodlands of Michigan.