Walter Inglis Anderson was born in 1903 to a prominent New Orleans family.  He received an extensive formal education including a year at the Parsons Institute of Design in New York and five years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine arts from which he won a travel grant for study in Europe.  Anderson's mother, Annette McConnell Anderson, studied pottery and painting and had a great interest in music and literature.  She had a strong influence on the development of her three talented sons, Peter, Walter and Mac.  She further influenced their future when in 1918 she bought a waterfront summer retreat in Ocean Springs, which eventually became the family's permanent home.

Walter met and married Radcliff graduate, Agnes Grinstead, who had been born at Oldfields, her parent's antebellum home and pecan plantation in neighboring Gautier.  It was at Oldfields in the years 1940 to 1943 that the calendar drawings, along with other larger works, were produced.  These are pleasant reflections of a peaceful time.  His wife and young children, farm animals and activities, plants, wildlife, sailing, seashore, and beloved birds make their way into these delightful design studies mixed with elements from other cultures, literature, and fantasy.

After returning to Ocean Springs in 1947, Anderson spent most of his time living apart in a cottage on the family property or in solitary sojourns to Horn Island where he produced the magnificent watercolors which are the culmination of his emersion in art and nature.  Alone on Horn Island he experienced a different face of nature when he weathered the fringes of Hurricane Betsy, in 1965, he died in New Orleans of post-operative complications.  Working until the very last days of his life, he produced major murals, watercolors, oils, ink drawings, block prints, illustrations, furniture, pottery, poetry and journals - the natural beauty of the Mississippi Coast absorbed and given back in a priceless legacy.