Seymour Ikenson was born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in 1925. As a child he studied at a W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) art school, then attended and graduated from Music and Art High School. Later, at the Art Students League in Manhattan, he studied painting with John Corbino and sculpture with Ossip Zadkine. Ikenson has had solo exhibitions at the Wantagh Library, Long Island, New York, and in the 1980s, his watercolors (which are influenced by the style of the German Expressionists) were exhibited at the Pen & Brush Club in New York City. Since the age of fifteen, upon the death of his father, Ikenson had worked in the steel industry. During his career he established steel fabricating plants called Ikenson Iron works in Port Washington on Long Island, New York, and the American Structural Steel Corporation in Somerville, New Jersey. Throughout the years, although he never intended to make a livelihood from art, Ikenson has continued to paint, sculpt, and remain active in the arts.