Bradford Graves was born in Wheatland, Texas in 1939, and moved to New York City in 1958, where he studied at the School of Visual Arts, the American School of Visual Arts, and The New School, and worked as an assistant to the sculptor Alfred Van Loen, as well as for the NYC Parks Department and the Museum of Modern Art. He earned his BA and MA from Goddard College, and taught at Parsons School of Design and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Graves traveled extensively in Greece, Israel, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Iran, Afghanistan, Scotland, Senegal, Egypt, and Japan. In 1980, he was awarded an Artist's Fellowship in sculpture by the National Endowment for the Arts and created his Crossing the Plains sculpture for a rest area in Lincoln, Nebraska. and a Commission from the NYS Council on the Arts to create the first public sculpture on the NYS Thruway, at Schroon Lake. His work has been exhibited in both the United States and abroad. The Bradford Graves Sculpture Garden in Kerhonkson, NY is a major repository of his work. He played saxophone in a band called Vortex, which was voted One of the Best New Bands by CODA Magazine in 1982, and helped launch SOUNDSCAPE with his wife, Verna Gillis, and frequently collaborated with the poets John Taggart and Michael Heller. Bradford Graves died in New York City in 1998.