Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, Abbott Fuller Graves was an influential Boston painter noted for his impressionist garden scenes and still life subjects. He went to Paris and Italy in 1884, and often worked with his friend the noted impressionist Edmund Tarbell. Returning to Boston in 1885 he taught at the Cowles Art School where fellow faculty member Childe Hassam strongly influenced his work. Graves returned to Paris in 1887 and studied at the Academie Julian. He divided his time between Paris and New England throughout his career and in 1891 opened his own art school in Boston, which he moved to Kennebunkport, Maine, and eventually closed in 1902.

Graves was an associate of the National Academy of Design, and belonged to numerous art organizations, including the Salmagundi Club, the American Art Association of Paris, Allied Artists of America, the Copley Society of Boston, the National Arts Club, the Boston Society of Water Color Painters, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and the Boston Art Club. He won numerous awards during his long career.