Rachel Warner is a fifth-generation Montanan who grew up on a cattle ranch near Whitefish, Montana. She studied Renaissance art in Italy while a college student and eventually earned her B.F.A. from Montana State University. Three more tours of studying art history and painting in Italy and France enriched her education and artistic understanding even further. Additionally, Warner enjoyed a 20-year mentorship with the late San Francisco-based artist Russell Chatham and carries the principles of his tonalist legacy forward with her distinct poetic vision.

Today Warner is a nationally recognized American tonalist painter and a Signature Member of the American Tonalist Society. She has been influenced and inspired by a range of great painters throughout American and European art history, specifically George Inness (1825-1894), Odilon Redon (1840-1916), Antonio Mancini (1852-1930), James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Claude Monet (1840-1926), J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), Gottardo Piazzoni (1872-1945), and, above all, Russell Chatham (1939-2019).

Warner spends most of her time working on private and corporate commissions in her Montana studio near Glacier National Park but maintains connection with top art markets in Europe and both coasts of the United States. The long list of Warner's collectors includes the CEOs of Intel, SunOpta, Yahoo, Walmart, Capitol Records, Techtron Engineering, and Jackson Family Wines.

The artist is represented by Christopher-Clark Fine Art (San Francisco) and Palm Avenue Fine Art (Sarasota, FL).