His father, Henry True, was a pioneer who had fought against the secession of Texas with Sam Houston, driven cattle on the trail from Abilene to Montana, and had established a mercantile and freight business in Colorado Springs catering to the headlong mining rush pushing west into the mountains.

[2] His mother, Margaret True, was to become a noted educator, serving first as a teacher in Colorado Springs and later as President of the Denver School Board and head of the truancy department.

[1]: 98–107 [6] In March 1913, Frank Brangwyn asked True to return to London to work on his murals to decorate the Court of Abundance at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

The murals in the Senate chamber are entitled "Indian Chief Cheyenne", "Frontier Cavalry Officer", "Pony Express Rider", and "Railroad Builders/Surveyors".

[1] He also painted murals in many public buildings in Denver, Colorado, including Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph (now Qwest), US National Bank (destroyed), Children's Hospital (in storage), Colorado National Bank (now owned by Stonebridge Cos which has turned the building into a Marriott Renaissance hotel), South High School, Steele Elementary School, and the Greek Theatre and Voorhies Memorial at the Civic Center.

Also in 1934, True also was hired as Consulting Artist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to lay out color schemes and create decorations for major power houses at the giant dams being built during the Thirties and early Forties (Hoover, Grand Coulee, Bonneville, Shasta, Friant and Minidoka).

[11] In 1942, The Bureau of Reclamation sent him to camouflage school in Washington, D.C., where he drew up plans to hide America's huge dams from the country's wartime enemies.

[1]: 367, 364 In spite of a debilitating stroke suffered in the early Fifties, True completed one more mural; an exuberant depiction of a Native American eagle dance for the University of Colorado Student Union Building in Boulder (which is now owned by the Koshare Indian Museum in La Junta).

[1] : 434–437 True was recognized as an authority on Indian design, costume and artifacts, as well as on the lives of westerners such as the cowboy, trapper, explorer, prospector, construction worker and farmer who are depicted in his numerous murals and easel paintings.

[12] In 1931 True began discussing creating a series of transportation themed murals with Charles Boettcher, then the owner of the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.

However True was having a difficult time finding a space to work in, but eventually found a studio that he could use in the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C., where he had studied years earlier.

In 1931, True's murals for Denver's Mountain Telephone & Telegraph building were exhibited at the Architectural and Allied Arts Exposition in New York City.