D.C. Niehaus was born in California in 1953. He attended both the Maryland Institute of Art at Baltimore and the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA from which he graduated in 1976. In addition to painting he has studied Art History and English Literature.

As part of his ongoing search to better educate himself as an artist he has sought out and studied with many painters, most notably Andrew Wyeth at his Brandywine Institute and renown pastellist, Thomas Leighton, of San Francisco.

His constant study and experimentation has led him into many areas of visual art including printmaking, encaustic, photography and sculpture, and from all of those synthesizing his own unique vision.

His work has appeared in film and on television and is also in corporate and private collections too numerous to mention. D.C. lives and paints in Southern California with his wife, the painter, Monica Ratliff.