John Stockton de Martelly was a lithographer, etcher, painter, illustrator, teacher, and writer. Born in Philadelphia, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, as well as in Florence, Italy, and at the Royal College of Art in London.

During the 1930s and 1940s, de Martelly taught printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he worked alongside Thomas Hart Benton. The two became close friends, and de Martelly was influenced by Benton’s Regionalist style. When Benton was dismissed from the Art Institute, the Board of Governors offered de Martelly Benton’s position as head of the Painting Department. Outraged by the decision, de Martelly resigned.

De Martelly’s lithographs, sold through the Associated American Artists Galleries in New York during the 1930s and 1940s, captured the character and atmosphere of the rural American landscape.

Later, de Martelly accepted a position as artist-in-residence at Michigan State University in East Lansing. By the late 1940s, he began moving away from Regionalism toward Abstract Expressionism