Benjamin Newton Messick was born in Missouri but moved to Los Angeles, California, after serving in France in World War I. He pursued a career as an artist, becoming known as "the American Daumier" for his WPA-era genre scenes much like the one here.

During the Great Depression, Messick painted murals in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C., as part of the Works Progress Administration program. He worked for the Disney Studios and MGM in the 1940s. He taught at the Chouinard Art Institute and at the San Diego School of Arts and Crafts.

His work has been widely exhibited and is included in such collections as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Laguna Art Museum, also in California, and the Springfield Museum of Art in Missouri.