Born in Auburn, Victoria, Ray Crooke left school at 15 to work for an advertising agency, taking evening classes in art at Swinburne Technical College. With the outbreak of World War Two, Crooke’s job at the agency ended and he began full-time study at Swinburne. In 1941, Crooke enlisted with 4th Division Headquarters Intelligence and then served with the Australian Imperial Force. In response to the Coral Sea Battle in 1942, his unit was posted to Townsville and Cape York – an experience that, in his words, ‘made a tremendous impression on me [although] it was to lie dormant for years . . . before I attempted to paint [it]’.

Following the war, Crooke completed his studies at Swinburne in 1946–48. He met Melbourne painter Arthur Boyd at this time and was impressed by Boyd’s paintings of the wheatbelt in the Wimmera district of north-western Victoria. In 1949, Crooke returned to Thursday Island and would eventually make North Queensland his home. Cape York town c.1949–55 suggests Boyd’s influence on Crooke’s developing style, as distinct from the stylised brightly coloured landscapes for which he became known.