Edward Penfield (1866-1925) was born June 2, 1866, in Brooklyn, New York. Penfield was a prominent illustrator and one of the early pioneers of graphic design. He began studying art at New York's Art Students League. He worked under George de Forest Brush, who was well known for his romantic scenes of Native American life and culture. Penfield started working for Harper's Weekly and later became an art director. As an artist Penfield developed his own unique style of basic figures with bold outlines free of unnecessary detail. His dramatic posters stood out from a distance. Penfield wrote and published a book titled Holland Sketches, which was published by Scribner's in 1907.

Penfield lived in New Rochelle, New York, a popular art colony among actors, writers, and artists of the period. The community was most known for its unprecedented number of prominent American illustrators. He was one of the founding members of the New Rochelle Art Association, which was organized in 1912.