Paul Rahilly was born in Boston, graduated from Tufts University, and studied painting at the Art Students League of New York. He is well known for his large, complex figure paintings and for his watercolor landscapes painted both in the U.S. and in Europe. He has been awarded grants for painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, and the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship. Rahilly has taught in a number of schools, primarily in the Boston area, including the Massachusetts College of Art and the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He has exhibited nationally for almost forty years and is currently represented by Hirschl & Adler Modern in New York and by Gallery NAGA in Boston.