Ralph Goings was born in 1928 in Corning, CA. He received his BFA from the California College of the Arts in 1953 and his MFA from Sacramento State College in 1965. He had his first solo exhibit in 1970. Goings became one of the founding members of the photorealist movement, writing that “form, color and space area at the whim of reality; their discovery and organization is the assignment of the realist painter.”