Donald Beal was born in Syracuse, New York and grew up in Westford, Massachusetts. He studied painting at the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and received an MFA from Parsons School of Design in 1983. He moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1985 and continues to live and work there with his wife Khristine. Beal taught as a Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts in North Dartmouth from 1999 until 2019. He was a 2013 recipient of the Lillian Orlowsky William Freed (LOWF) grant, and has received grants from the National Academy of Arts, the Gottlieb Foundation, and the Artists Fellowship. He has shown his work nationally in both group and solo exhibitions, and is included in numerous public and private collections.