John Modesitt was born November 6, 1955, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He became very serious about art at 12 years of age. He began painting in watercolors and moved on to acrylics when he was
17 years old. His formal training began in the late 1970s under the late Robert Frame at the Santa Barbara City College where John was introduced to oil painting. During this time period he also studied at Cabrillo City College and the Santa Barbara Art Museum.

In 1980 he moved to New York City to study art more seriously. There he studied privately at Townsend Studios. However, he was discouraged by the onslaught of the modern art movement and began studying on his own at museums in New York City and in Chicago.

In 1985 he moved to the Chicago with his family where he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Most of his time there was spent in the museum studying the collections of his favorite painters including Monet, Manet, Pissarro, and Renoir. There he observed all he could from those artists. In the early 1990's John moved his family back to Southern California where he could spend most of the year painting directly from nature. Galleries throughout the nation began representing him. He began to paint in Europe where he lives part time until the present.

Several exhibits assembled in Japan in the 1990s showcasing Modesitt's paintings. In 2012 John was chosen to represent the USA in an exhibit in the Great Hall in Bejing, China. After 1990, Modesitt predominately painted landscapes of the American West as well as figurative works. Numerous articles have been published in major art magazines about his work.

He currently has paintings in The Butler Museum of American Art and the New Britain Museum. A recent book published highlights his California paintings entitled Modesitt, The
Paintings of California.

John Modesitt currently lives with his family between two locations, San Diego, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico.