Karl F. Stewart was born in the States in 1950. After military service in the Navy on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine, he studied existential phenomenology in psychology and philosophy at Duquesne University, In January 1974 he became an early member of the Pittsburgh Filmmakers Association during its founding when it started out in a basement in East Liberty, Pittsburgh. There Stewart followed a three-month 2.5-hour-a-week class in photography. Six months later after an interview with Bill Strickland at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Artist-in-Residence photography grant for two years to work in an inner-city community arts program. As part of the program he also worked as a photographer for the Carnegie Museum of Art and Assistant Director for the Manchester Bidwell Photographic Training Center. When the residency ended Stewart taught photographic design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. It was during these first years of photography that he freelanced for Associated Press, Pittsburgh bureau. Back at University again, he studied journalism and Latin American Studies at Ohio University, after which he worked as a photojournalist, journalist, assistant editor for small newspapers in Ohio, Virginia and W. Virginia. Seeking an experience abroad, in the early 1980s Stewart left the States and moved to Italy where he taught English. In 1986 he became a Professor of English at the Università degli Studi di Torino, and later also a Professor at the Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara and Director of the language program at Scuola Università di Management d'Impresa, Pinerolo, Italy. During a 15-year period he taught business language communication courses to CEOs and top management in major corporations in Turin. He wrote a number of books for the study of English developing the notions of The Mathematics of Tense Construction and Eggshell Time. Though not having taken even one photograph for 27 years, Stewart was encouraged to start doing photography again in 2008. In 2009 he resigned from University and moved to San Francisco, California (2009-12). He lated did photography and video out of Dusseldorf, Germany (2012-16). Presently he is working out of France. In 2019 Stewart became a member of the French La Maison des artistes. He has been, and still is, living in France and Italy for more than 30 years. He speaks English, French and Italian.