George Ray Chamberlain graduated from Cornell in 1891, with a degree in mechanical (electrical) engineering. From 1892 to 1896, he attended the Art Students' League in New York, and worked as an illustrator and cartoonist, including work with Liberty Hyde Bailey. In 1902, he became an instructor in Industrial Drawing and Art in Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and, after 1906, an instructor and professor of free-hand drawing in the College of Architecture at Cornell. In 1903, he married Grace Caldwell, the daughter of chemistry professor George Caldwell.