Henry Melton Hesse was born in Greeley, Colorado on Oct. 30, 1908 to Zache and Minna Hesse. By the early 1920s Hesse had moved to Los Angeles and married Helen Naomi Lynd in 1933. In Los Angeles he studied with Paul Sample, Millard Sheets, and at the University of Southern California in 1928. In 1940 he was working for the North American Aviation Co as an Architectural Draftsman while living in Glendale, California. As an artist he was working in a Regionalist style, he painted urban scenes of Los Angeles and landscapes of the surrounding area.

Henry Melton Hesse died in Kaneohe, Honolulu, Hawaii in April 1985.

Hesse exhibited with the Calif. WC Society, 1932-39; Painters & Sculptors of LA, 1933-34; Ebell Club (LA), 1934 (3rd prize); Santa Cruz Art League, 1934, 1938; Laguna Beach AA, 1930s; San Francisco Art Association, 1940.