Alfred Charles Stanley Anderson, an important twentieth century British engraver, etcher and watercolor painter, was born in Bristol, United Kingdom. Stanley got his initial art education in the city, having been apprenticed to his father’s business as an heraldic engraver at age 15. In 1909 he was awarded a modest scholarship and studied under Frank Short at the Royal College of Art, London. Despite this expert instruction, Anderson insisted that he was greatly self-educated in art.

Equally well respected for both his figure studies and architectural views, Stanley Anderson produced his first etching in 1908. During the following twenty years 160 of his etchings and drypoints were published, as well as a number of fine line engravings. Today, extensive collections of the graphic art of Stanley Anderson are housed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Stanley Anderson was a full member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers.