John Tole attended the Elam School of Art, Auckland, where he was influenced by the work of John Weeks (1886 - 1965). Tole often travelled to Rotorua, where he, like Weeks, was friends with Dr W Stanley Wallis, a local doctor who shared their interest in modern painting. Tole and his brother Charles were both fringe members of what the late Melvin Day called The Rotorua Connection. In 1945 Day had gone to the area to teach, whilst there he shared a studio with Wallis.