Painter, printmaker, sculptor, and designer Irving George Lehman was born in Kiev, Russia, in 1899. He later located to the United States, settling in New York and studying at the Art Students League, the National Academy of Design, and Cooper Union. In the early 1940s he worked for the WPA, and was a member of the American Artists Congress and the American Abstract Artists group. He taught at Vanderpoel College.

Lehman exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others. He also garnered attention for work in a 1951 traveling international exhibition that showed in Italy, Paris, England, and Israel. He was best known as an American Abstract Expressionist of the New york School.

Irving George Lehman died in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on September, 18, 1983.