Dohanos, a native of Ohio, studied at the Cleveland Museum Art School and later under the master of lithography, Stow Wengenroth.

He created fine art that gloried in the beauty of the everyday object or situation. He also created illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, producing more than 125 magazine covers between 1943 and 1959. He is second only to Norman Rockwell in the number of covers produced for the Post. He was elected to the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Illustrators.