Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Sam Stetson was declared a prodigy and was sent to study at the Chicago Art Institute at the age of 15, becoming a teacher there at the age of just 18.
 
He went on to study with:
Andre Lhote, Paris 
Fernand Leger, Paris 
The Bauhaus, Germany
Hans Hoffman, in both California and New York
David Karfunkel, New York
Samuel Marcus Adler, NYU, New York