John Aloysius Stanton, mural, landscape, marine, and portrait painter, designer and printmaker, was born in Grass Valley, California on 15 September 1857.  He grew up in San Francisco on his parent's ranch in the Mission District. After graduating from St. Ignatius High School, Stanton studied at the Mark Hopkins School of Design and later spent five years in Paris studying with Jean Paul Laurens, Georges Collat, and Puvis de Chavannes.

Upon his return to San Francisco, Stanton became chief administrator of the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition held in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. He was also Professor of Drawing and Painting at the Mark Hopkins School of Design (later known as the San Francisco Institute of Art) for twenty-six years and became acting dean of the faculty.

In 1904, Stanton moved to Palo Alto where he resided at 409 Melville Avenue. He produced some etchings but in later years he turned to monotype as an aid for painting as well as producing works for exhibition. He was a member of and exhibited with the Bohemian Club and the San Francisco Art Association. Stanton also exhibited his work at the California State Fairs between 1882 and 1901, the Mechanic's Institute in San Francisco, the Paris Salon of 1891, and his work was shown Gumps and the Courvoisier Gallery in San Francisco, and the Macbeth Gallery in New York.

Stanton's work is represented in the Harvard Art Museums and the Chazen Museum of Art. John A. Stanton died in Palo Alto, California on 25 August 1929. After his death, a relative unfamilar to the value of paintings tossed out most of Stanton's life work making it quite rare.