Born in David City, Nebraska, Dale Nichols studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and at the Art Institute of Chicago. He spent the 1930’s in Chicago where he became a Carnegie Professor in Art at the University of Illinois. In the 40’s he worked as the art editor for "Encyclopedia Britannica." Even though he traveled extensively in the later half of his life, he continued to paint the rural Nebraska farmland of his youth. Nichols’ paintings are in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.