Douglass Rice was born in La Jolla, California in 1952 and later grew up in Sewickley, Pennsylvania before moving to San Francisco in 1968. He studied sculpture at Phillips Exeter Academy under Richard Lyman, continued his studies with Richard Randall at Stanford University, and also explored painting at various institutions including the Mendocino Art Center and the School for Visual Arts in New York. In 1987, Rice relocated to New York with his family, where he worked in high-end residential design until 2015 while maintaining a studio in Tribeca and raising his children in Soho. Over the past thirty years, he has exhibited widely, including twice at the National Arts Club, where he was invited to join and now serves on the Round Table committee.