Howard Terpning was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He grew up in the Midwest, living in Iowa, Missouri, Texas, and Illinois. As a boy he liked to draw and knew by the age of seven that he wanted to be an artist. At age 15, he became fascinated with the West and Native Americans when he spent the summer camping and fishing with a cousin near Durango, Colorado. When he turned 17, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served from 1945 through 1946.After leaving the Marines, he enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in their two-year commercial art program. To further his studies, he attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago for six months, where he honed his life drawing and painting skills. After art school, a family friend introduced Terpning to Haddon Sundblom, a successful and highly regarded illustrator of that time. Based on the recommendation of Terpning's drawings, Sundblom hired Terpning to work at his Chicago studio. Initially, Terpning ran errands, but after about a year and a half, he began to work on his own commissions. After he moved to areas such as Milwaukee, New York, and Chicago, illustrating for 25 years.In 1967, in the midst of his commercial art career, Terpning left his home in Connecticut and headed to Vietnam as a civilian combat artist. He was invited by the Marine Corps to document the war by living with the Marines for one month. After two weeks of training he wound up in Da Nang, South Vietnam, with a camera and sketch pad going out on patrols with combat troops. Of the experience, Terpning stated he was "profoundly changed" by the experience. Upon his return home he created six paintings which are now at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.Around 1974, Terpning began to tire of commercial work and decided to follow his interest in the American West and Plains Indians. Consequently, he began to transition into fine art by creating paintings and selling them in Western galleries.In 1985, Terpning was honored with a retrospective at the Gilcrease Museum with 38 original works on display. His work has also been displayed in Beijing, China, and the Grand Palais in Paris. In 2006, at the Coeur d'Alene Art Auction Terpning's Search for the Renegades sold for over 1.4 million. The Stragglers sold for just over 1 million.