Dale Nichols was born in David City, Nebraska on July 13, 1904. At twenty, Nichols went to study at Chicago's Acadmey of Fine Arts. He remained in Chicago for approximately fifteen years, spending one year as the Carnegie Professor in Art at the University of Illinois. In 1943 he became the Art Editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nichols spent the remainder of his life moving between Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Guatemala, and Alaska. He died in Sedona, Arizona on October 19, 1995 at 91.

Nichols's oil paintings center on recreations of the farm life he experienced in his early years in Nebraska. He stated, "I feel that an artist paints best what he has been exposed to during his youth. I think my memory paintings of my home state may be my only creations that I sign with full confidence." Nichols took a stand against the "modern" art of the time, because he felt that the rules of the natural should dictate real art, rather than those of the unnatural. It was once stated that Dale Nichols put Nebraska on the map but Nichols response was, "Dale Nichols did not put Nebraska on the map; Nebraska put Dale Nichols on the map."