American painter, Philip Moose was born in Newton, North Carolina. He studied at various art schools, including  the National Academy of Design, Columbia University, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, and Taxco School of Art, Mexico. During his professional career he was a professor of art at Davidson College (1951-1953) and Queens College (1956-1967). Moose spent summers in a second home in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where he helped establish an art colony and residency, and eventually retired.. His works have been exhibited temporarily at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and permanently at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.