Howard Bradford, painter, printmaker and teacher, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 14, 1919.  His family moved to California in 1922 and he was raised in Los Angeles. 

After serving in the Army during World War II, Bradford used the G.I. Bill to study at the Chouinard and Jepson Art Institutes in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Art Institute. He met fellow artist, Dorothy Bowman, while studying at Chouinard and they eventually wed. Bradford later taught painting and lithography at Jepson and was a summer guest teacher of serigraphy at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. 

In the 1950s the Western Serigraph Institute was formed in Los Angeles and Bradford was a charter member. He was also a member of the American Color Print Society and the Carmel Art Association.

Bradford's work was included in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the country and is represented in the Library of Congress, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the New York Public Library, the Philadelphia Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, le Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Howard Bradford died in Monterey, California on April 20, 2008.