Nat Mayer Shapiro was born in New York City, and spent his childhood and adolescence in Brooklyn, NY. At ten he decided he would become a full-time fine arts painter and started attending the after-school programs at the Pratt Institute in New York. He was inducted in the army in 1941, and traveled with the Medical Corp to Australia and New Guinea where he spent most of his four years and half of military life. Upon his return to the States, he spent eight months in the Rest & Rehabilitation Center in Lake Placid, NY, where he was finally able to work as an artist, painting stage sets, portraits and landscapes. In 1945, the War Department acquired some of Shapiro’s artwork for the then planned War Museum. Back into civilian life, Shapiro worked as a commercial artist while attending classes at the Art Students League of New York.