Born in Bangor, Maine in 1852, Stuart was the grandson of famous portraitist Gilbert Stuart. He moved to California with his parents at the age of eight and settled on a ranch near Rio Vista. Stuart was a prize student under Virgil Williams and R.D. Yelland at the California School of Design in the late 1870s.

Stuart later migrated to Portland, Oregon and became a leading member of the art scene there for several years. His name appears first in a list of the founding members of the Portland Art Club, preceding those of such fine painters as Cleveland Rockwell and Grafton Tyler Brown.

In 1879, after graduating from the California School of Design, Stuart settled in The Dalles, Oregon, supporting himself by painting signs for businesses that were rebuilding after a fire had burned down the town. In a reminiscence published in the Rio Vista River News-Herald, Stuart recalled,

"During the morning hours on Sundays, I made color paintings direct from nature of the wonderful subjects near the town, and when work was slack would take a camping and sketching trip to some nearby interesting places… and in that manner secured many of my most important subjects while working at commercial painting to earn my daily bread." These dramatic paintings are the result of such excursions.

Paintings by Stuart are in the collections of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the California State Library in Sacramento, University of Southern California, Los Angeles County Museum and the White House.