[2] He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1931-1933, with fellow Nebraskan artist and friend Keith Martin.
[3] Rain would follow his studies with a year-long trip to Europe in 1934, where he traveled to Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, meeting several artists there, including Max Beckmann and Otto Dix.
[3] Charles Rain was a prominent member of the Magic Realists, a movement of American painters influenced by European trompe l'oeil and Surrealism.
[1] A 1942 exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art titled American Realists and Magic Realists featured paintings by Charles Rain, amongst other artists such as Andrew Wyeth and Peter Blume.
[2] In 1999, the Sheldon Museum of Art held a Magic Realism exhibition all about Charles Rain's artworks.