Frederick Stanley Haines was born in Meaford, Ontario in 1879. He attended the Central Ontario School of Art under George Arthur Reid and William Cruikshank, financing his education by painting and selling portraits. His first exhibition was in 1901 with the Ontario Society of Artists, and in 1906 he became a member of that society.
Haines studied abroad at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp in 1913 under Juliaan de Vriendt. In 1919 he became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and began making prints. The following year he became secretary for the Canadian National Exhibition's Graphic Art Department and in 1924 was appointed as Commissioner of Fine Arts. The same year he was elected as President of the Ontario Society of Artists.
He became Curator at the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1928, a post which he held for four years before becoming Principal of the Ontario College of Art. He was elected President of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1939. Haines retired from the Ontario College of Art in 1951 and devoted himself to painting from his home in Thornhill, Ontario until his death in 1960.
The Art Gallery of Toronto hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1961, which traveled to the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Willistead Art Gallery in Windsor, Ontario and the Sarnia Public Library and Art Gallery.