'Walter Inglis Anderson was born on September 29, 1903 in New Orleans to George Walter Anderson and Annette McConnell Anderson. His father was a grain merchant and his mother was an artist.

He was the second of three brothers, the eldest being Peter and the youngest, Mac. He went to St. John's School in Manilus, New York , from the ages of eight to fourteen when his schooling was interrupted by World War I. After that he went to Manual Training School in New Orleans.

He then went on to the Parson's Institute in New York. He finished his education at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

While he was at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he won the Packard Award for winning an animal drawing contest against the entire student body.

He later won a scholarship to study abroad and went to France. While he was in France, he was particularly impressed with the cave paintings, which noticeably influenced his drawing style. He went back to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to live. There he met Agnes Grinstead and married her. He worked for his brother Peter at Shearwater pottery. During the Depression he worked for the WPA painting murals. Then in 1937 he was diagnosed a Schizophrenic and spent three years in and out of hospitals.

Every time he was placed in a mental institution, he devised a plan and escaped. When he was in Whitfield, he knotted up his bed sheets and climbed out, leaving drawings of birds on the walls .

Then he moved to Gautier, Mississippi, to live on his wife's father's estate, "Oldfields, " with his family. He left his family to go live in a cottage on the Shearwater pottery compound, and his family moved nearby. He spent the next eighteen years traveling back and forth from Horn Island. During this time he made most of his existing art work. He painted pictures of everything in nature that he possibly could. He died on November 30, 1965. Most of his art work was destroyed because he had no regard of his work. He simply didn't care about his work after he was through with it. A lot of his work that survived was just because he was a bad housekeeper and didn't clean up after himself .