Wallace-Crabbe was born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. His father was a journalist and his mother a pianist, and his brother Robin Wallace-Crabbe became an artist. He was educated at Scotch College, Yale University and the University of Melbourne, where for much of his life he has worked and is now a professor emeritus in the Australian Centre. He was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University and at the University of Venice, CaFoscari. He is also an essayist, a critic of the visual arts and a notable public reader of his verse. He was the founding director of the Australian Centre and, more recently, chair of the peak artistic body, Australian Poetry Limited
