Frederic Clay Bartlett was born in 1873. He was the son of a wealthy businessman.
At the age of 19, Bartlett traveled to Europe to study art. In 1894, Bartlett was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, an opportunity that very few Americans received. Following his time in Munich, Bartlett trained under French artists Edmond Aman-Jean and Raphaël Collin in Paris.
In addition to being an artist in his own right, Bartlett was an avid art collector, collecting many works of French Post-Impressionist and modernist art. He was committed to promoting the work of fellow artists and was a founding member of the Arts Club of Chicago.