Australian-born American painter, printmaker and teacher, Ambrose Patterson was born on 29 June 1877 at Daylesford, Victoria, the son of an English-born auctioneer and his Irish wife. From 1895 to 1898 Patterson attended the National Gallery School, Melbourne and the Melbourne School of Art before travelling to Paris to study at the Académie Julian.

In 1899 he travelled to Montreal and to New York, where he worked as a cartoonist for newspapers. He returned to Paris in 1901 and studied at the Académies Colarossi and Delécluze.  Initially a follower of Velasquez, around 1904 he started to paint in a more impressionist manner, inspired by the work of Manet, Monet, Renoir and Pissarro.

Returning to Australia in 1910, he received several significant portrait commissions but moved to Seattle in 1918, where he became Professor of Art at the University of Washington from 1919 to 1947. He died on 27 December 1966 in Seattle, aged 89.