Edward Borein was born in San Leandro, California in 1872. Borein would become best known for his depictions of the American West. Borein was said to have started sketching as a child. As a young man, Borein began his artistic training at the San Francisco Art School, where he met fellow artists and lifelong friends James Swinnerton and Maynard Dixon. Swinnerton and Dixon were equally interested in depicting life in the West. In order to gain a fuller understanding of the landscape, Edward Borein began traveling throughout America’s Southwest, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Borein moved to New York in order to attend the Art Students League, where he became a pupil of the painter Child Hassam. It was in New York where he first began making etchings. The charming artist also befriended artist Charles Russell and often visited him in Great Falls, Montana where he could continue his studies of Wyoming and Big Sky country.

Upon returning to California in 1902, Borein worked as an illustrator for the San Francisco Call.  In 1921 he moved to Santa Barbara, California where he would spend the remainder of his life. He taught at the Santa Barbara School of the Arts. As a draftsman, painter, and print-maker, Borein favored ink drawings, watercolors, and etchings. His favorites subjects were sketches of cowboys, horses, and Native Americans. Under the Federal Art Project, he became a muralist and in 1928 helped paint murals in Santa Barbara's El Paseo Restaurant, along with fellow artists Channing Peake, Joe DeYong, and Will James. Borein established a strong career and became one of California’s best-known painters of the West.