The son of a banker, Robert Polhill Bevan was highly educated in the arts. As a child, he was tutored by designer Arthur Ernest Pearce and as a young man, he studied at the Westminster School of art and at the Academie Julian in Paris. Bevan became known as a painter, draughtsman, and lithographer. He was a founding member of both the Camden Town Group in 1911 and the London Group in 1913. An acquaintance of Paul Gauguin, Bevan uses similar bold colors and patterning in his work.