Along with Joe Beeler, Charlie Dye, and John Hampton, George Phippen was one of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America. Phippen grew up in rural Kansas, where he attended a one room schoolhouse for eight years. At the age of eighteen, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked on projects throughout the country. He began to pursue a serious interest in art while in the army in World War II. He was largely self taught but studied under artist Henry Balink in New Mexico after the war. Of his lack of formal art training, he said, "I have had no schooling in art except what I got from friends, artists, and I've been mighty lucky to have had more friends than enemies." He also had the respect of his peers. He was the first president of the CAA but unfortunately did not live to participate in the group's first exhibition at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City in 1966. He died of cancer shortly before the show opened.