Born in Rochester, New York, Carl Peters was raised on a farm but exposed to a variety of artistic movements including the Hudson River School painters, tonalist tradition, Ashcan School, American impressionism, and early modernism. After attending art school in Rochester, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City and spent several summers in Woodstock, New York, studying with Charles Rosen and John F. Carlson, the latter being his most influential teacher. Having grown fond of the art colony life, he moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1925 and had a gallery in Rockport until his death in 1980.