Born in Chicago, between l926 and l930, Aaron Bohrod studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and later at the Art Students League in New York. Taught by John Sloan, Kenneth Hays Miller, and several other well-known American painters, Bohrod followed Sloan's advice that artists should "paint what they know." Bohrod left New York in 1930 and returned to his native Chicago to paint scenes of the city's north side streets and working class life in the Great Lakes region.