James Eisentrager was born in Alvord, Iowa in 1929 and received his BA in 1951 from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1961. He served in a reconnaissance unit in the Air Force for some time, and he was a Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He painted representationally until 1968, then his work became more geometric and mathematical, focusing on geometric principles and theories of root rectangles. He describes himself as a structuralist, "My work is about structure, composition, proportion, balance, and equilibrium. These are not emotions,but they interest me." He admired the works of Velazquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Mondrian, and Stuart Davis and has an allegiance with the anti-Expressionist formal tradition.