Satterlee attended Columbia University, graduating in 1863, the youngest member of his class. After a year of post-graduate work at Columbia, he enrolled in the Antique (1865-7) and Life (1866-7) Schools at the National Academy. His first contributions to an Academy Annual, two studies of deer heads, occurred in 1866, while he was still a student. Several years after his Academy training, Satterlee went abroad to study, working with Léon Bonnat in Paris and spending time in Rome in 1874 when he returned to New York.
He soon developed a specialty of depictions of French peasants and fisherwomen. During the remainder of his career, he traveled extensively, conducted a private art school for advanced pupils (such as Frank de Haven, Charles C. Curran, and William J. Whittemore), worked to improve the situation of New York's poor, and spent summers on Long Island.
The portrait of Satterlee appears as no. 303 in Lay's record book.