Arthur Becher was born on July 29, 1877 in Freiberg, Germany, and emigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his three brothers and parents at the age of four.

[1] He joined Milwaukee Art Student's League and sketched at Jones Island with Louis Mayer and other artists.

[2] Becher practiced photography during this period, and in 1902 he participated in the first exhibition of the Photo-Secession, a group of pictorialist photographers selected by Alfred Stieglitz.

While in Europe he took the opportunity to study oil painting with the German artist Otto Leopold Strutzel.

He used drawing media such as carbon or charcoal pencil for many of his illustrations but also worked in large scale oil painting.