Larry Poons was born in Tokyo in 1937. From 1955 to 1957 Poons studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. However, after seeing Barnett Newman's exhibition at French and Company in 1959, Poons gave up musical composition and enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Poons' time studying art in Boston was brief, and he dropped out of school only six months later. Moving to New York, Poons quickly became a fixture of the vibrant arts scene there, where he moved in a circle with artist contemporaries such as Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella.

Within three years Poons had his first solo exhibition at the renowned Green Gallery in 1963. Poons' early paintings were clearly articulated geometric explorations, the most recognizable of which were his 'dot paintings', compositions which showed a careful, mathematical arrangement of dots or ellipses against a richly and evenly saturated colored background. The dot paintings brought Poons fame and commercial success. However, in the overall arch of his career they were short lived. By the end of the decade he had begun to move towards a more expressive mode of painting, one driven by an exploration of the physical properties of paint itself. Largely turning his back on the mainstream art world, Poons' exploration into the process of painting has continued to this day. He lives and works in upstate New York.