Born near Arnegard, North Dakota on April 27, 1938, Gordon Mortensen received his BFA degree with Honors in 1964 from the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and he was enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul between 1969 and 1972.

Originally a portrait painter, Mortensen almost entirely abandoned that media for reduction woodcutting, achieving the creative freedom he desired. He is one of the few practicing artists of this method in the United States. During this transitional time, he taught briefly at the Saint Paul Art Museum, the Rochester Art Center, and the Minnetonka Art Center in Wayzata.

Early in his printmaking career, Mortensen circulated his color woodcuts via exhibitions in the Midwest. His work reached a wider audience in 1976 when he participated in the Brooklyn Museum’s National Print Exhibition.