Carter studied at the Cleveland School of Art from 1923 to 1927. Following graduation, he studied with Hans Hofmann in Capri, Italy, for the summer of 1927. Throughout the 1930s and 40s he was known for his paintings of rural America and the burden brought on by the Great Depression. By the end of World War II he had adopted a more surrealist approach to painting.
Since December 2007 Carter's striking figure study of a nude young woman is owned in the collection of the Naples (Florida) Museum of Arts - and presently on display in the first floor gallery of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts.