Melville Price was born in Kingston, New York in 1920. Price began studying informally in his twenties at the Art Students League, the New School for Social Research, and the National Academy of Design. His mentors were Joseph Stella and Franz Kline. Price worked at the WPA where he associated with Gorky, de Kooning, and Pollock. Price also became a member at the Club, and became friends with Robert Motherwell, Giorgio Cavallon, Milton Resnick, and Conrad Marca-Relli. Melville Price was one of the youngest of the first-generation Abstract Expressionist painters working in New York. Price taught at the Museum School and University of Alabama. His work can be found in the collections of Smithsonian, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Art Museum, and Birmingham Museum of Art.