Betts began his art studies in the summer classes of the Art Students League in 1935, when fifteen years of age, and continued spending his summers at the League to 1942, the year of his graduation from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. From 1946 to 1948 he was a full-time student at the League, and then entered the University of Illinois, Urbana, from which he received the M. F. A. degree in 1952.
In Academy annual exhibitions Betts has been awarded a Hallgarten prize in 1953, and Altman prize in 1954, 1957, 1959, and 1966. He has also received awards from the Audubon Artists, the American Watercolor Society, and Allied Artists. Betts is a member of a number of artistic organizations including the American Watercolor Society, the Audubon Artists, and the National Society of Painters in Casein.He was a professor emeritus of art at the University of Illinois, Urbana. For many years Betts has summered in Ogunquit, Maine, and the landscape of the area is frequently the source of his geometrically abstracted compositions.Aftre retiring from teaching in 1984, he moved to Kennebunk, ME where he continued painitng. He was represented by the Midtown Galleries, New York,
