Edwin Walter Dickinson (1893-1978) was an early American modernist known for his artistic independence imagination, and originality. Dickinson was born in Seneca Falls, New York. He studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase. In 1912, he moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod to study with Charles W. Hawthorne.
Dickinson later taught at the Art Students League in New York in the 1920s. An expert draftsman, he mixed clarity with ambiguity in his drawings and paintings, imbuing them with tension and mystery. An active artist throughout his life, Dickinson spent most of his time painting in Cape Cod where he died in 1978.