Locke was the son of an attorney. He studied at the Ohio Mechanics Institute and the Cincinnati Art Academy. A fellowship from the Tiffany Foundation in 1921 enabled him to come to New York. Subsequently he worked as an assistant to Joseph Pennell who was teaching lithography at the Art Students League. After Pennell's death, Locke took over his position at the League and taught there until 1937.
While in New York, Locke did genre scenes of city life, associated with the artistic circle around Isabel Bishop and Reginald Marsh, and lived in Brooklyn Heights. In 1928 he went to Paris to study printmaking with Desjobert. In 1931 he married Dorothy Hollander. He taught lithography at the Colorado Springs Art Center in the summer of 1936. Locke took up painting again in the mid-1930s after having dropped it in the early 1920s.
In 1937 Locke moved to Garrison, New York where he continued painting and printmaking specializing in landscape and waterfront scenes.
Locke was nominated to the NAD by Kenneth Frazier.
