Arthur George Murphy, lithographer, painter, and teacher was born in Tiffin, Ohio on January 4, 1906. He began his art studies at the Cleveland School of Art and then moved to New York where he studied for about two years at the Art Students' League with Boardman Robinson and George Bridgeman. Murphy worked for a time as a cartoonist for New York and Chicago newspapers and, in 1930, he moved west to San Francisco where he continued his art studies at the California School of Fine Arts. He also studied briefly at the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs in 1932 and 1934.

Murphy worked on California's Federal Art Project, producing almost one hundred lithographs, as well as painting murals. Many of his lithographs recorded the construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. During World War II, Murphy served as war artist in the South Pacific and after his discharge he settled permanently in Connecticut where he taught at the Whitney School of Art and Quinnipiac College.

Murphy died in Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1991.