A painter best known for his portraits, John Carroll was born en route through Kansas and grew up in San Francisco, where he studied art for three years at the Mark Hopkins Art Academy, transferring to the University of California at Berkeley for two years. He then studied art with Frank Duveneck in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Carroll settled for a time in New York, where he designed stained glass for Tiffany Studios and was a member of the Woodstock art colony. He received critical acclaim for his work at the Pennsylvania Academy Of The Arts in Philadelphia, and became and instructor at the Art Students League, then went to Europe in 1927 on a Guggenheim Fellowship, followed by a number of years as head of the paintings department at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. Returning to New York, he divided his time between his New York City studio and his farm in East Chatham, New York.