A native of Buffalo, New York, Evelyn Rumsey Lord studied at the Albright Art School with Urquhart Wilcox and Edwin Dickinson and at the Art Students’ League in New York with Robert Henri. During summers she painted in Ogonquit, Maine, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. She became a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists in 1910 and served as president for two years from 1931 to 1932.