Platt Powell Ryder spent his youth working in his father's shoe store and drawing in his spare time. At age 25, he gave up his work in the store and sought art instruction in New Orleans, where his family had moved. By 1850, he was back in Brooklyn, exhibiting his first portrait at an Academy Annual. He made a three-year trip to Europe in 1854, returning once again to Brooklyn, where he was a founder of the Brooklyn Academy of Design. Ryder began including genre pictures in his Academy submissions, and a year before his second European sojourn, he became an associate member.
In France, he chose Leon Bonnat as his master, but he also spent time in Belgium, Holland, and England. Upon his return in 1870 or 1871, he was kept active with many portrait commissions, causing, at one point, a breakdown for the overworked artist. Ryder seems to have visited Paris again in 1879. In New York studio life, he was a neighbor and particular friend of Thomas W. Wood.
