Born in Nebraska, she was an oil painter in La Cañada Flintridge, California until she moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1950.

[8] In Los Angeles she was art curator for the Tuesday Afternoon Club, and worked at Walt Disney Studios.

She wrote a book, How Nell Walker Warner Paints in Oils.

[10] In 1950, she held a one-woman show in Honolulu, to exhibit her paintings of Hawaiian flowers.

[13] However, the Los Angeles Times critic in 1931 gave a mixed review, saying "Her effects are more pleasing in the general than in the particular.