From 15 to 18 he attended the Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts; where he studied painting with Bartlett Hayes and won the Samuel F. B. Morse Prize for most promising art student.
In Arizona he exhibited his landscape paintings and still lifes at the Alfred Messer Studio Gallery in Tucson.
During World War II, he served in the signal intelligence service in Britain, France and Germany, where he rose to the rank of sergeant.
In 1949 he moved to the house his parents had owned on a 94-acre (380,000 m2) property in Warren, Connecticut, and lived there for the rest of his life.
His wife of 47 years, Francine du Plessix Gray, reported that he died of a "massive subdural hematoma suffered after he fell on ice and hit his head.