Stanley Palmer was born near Thames in the Coromandel in 1936 and studied at Dunedin Technical College in the late 1950s. Although he has become well-known for his prints, his formative years were spent painting. In 1969 he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Art Council grant and in 1970 he quit his day job as an art teacher to became a professional printmaker and painter.

By the late 1970s his printmaking repertoire included woodcuts, monoprints and bamboo engravings. The scenes he portrays mainly feature New Zealand coasts with themes of colonisation, conservation, humanity and the land.

Palmer has had regular and numerous one-man exhibitions in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

His work is represented in Te Papa Tongarewa and most other New Zealand public collections.