Ryan S. Brown was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah.

By the time he was a senior in high school Ryan had decided to pursue art as a profession. This pursuit led him to Brigham Young University where he studied Illustration, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002.
While finishing his studies at BYU, Ryan became aware of the deficiencies in his University education. Because his interests were in the academic and naturalist traditions of the nineteenth century, it became necessary for him to get the foundational drawing and painting training not offered at the university. In his senior year at BYU, Ryan began studying with William Whitaker, a renowned portrait and figurative painter.
Soon after this, Ryan entered the Florence Academy of Art, where he received his first taste of Academic training. The organized, intense and concise training of the Florence Academy provided Ryan with what he considers the beginning of his understanding of the craft of art.
This training not only gave Ryan a deep understanding and love of drawing, but also developed in him a strong self-discipline and work ethic, as well as an insatiable appetite for learning.
In 2003 Ryan returned home to Utah. Upon his return, Ryan began producing work for galleries. Ryan also began teaching academic principles at BYU, teaching figure drawing, observational and spatial drawing and cast drawing. Ryan also opened his studio to students, establishing the Classical Drawing Academy in Springville, Utah.
During the three years this Academy was available to students, Ryan saw more than 80 students come through his studio to experience this training. Ryan also taught part-time at Utah Valley State College. Ryan was able to teach and pass on these academic principles until the end of 2006.

Ryan also taught at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art sporadically between 2004 and 2006, culminating in an academic drawing workshop given in 2006. An article in American Artist Workshop Magazine in the Winter 2006 issue covered this workshop.
In January, 2007 Ryan, his wife and three kids moved back to Florence in order to finish his studies at the Florence