Walter Gay - Seated Lady - 2008.19.14 - Yale University Art Gallery

Walter Gay (1856–1937) was a flower painter in Boston until 1876. That year he went to Paris and studied with Léon Bonnat until 1879. He travelled to Spain, where he discovered Velázquez. The following year he shared a studio on the Boulevard de Clichy with three American artists. Under the aegis of Jacques-Émile Blanche he joined the group of 33, which brought together good mainstream artists in opposition to the revolutionaries of the time. As was the American custom he joined many artists’ associations, both in the USA and in Belgium and France, including the Bande Noire (Black Group), a group of Post-Impressionist artists whose members included Charles Cottet, René Ménard and Lucien Simon. He was made a Chevalier, then Officier and finally Commandeur of the Légion d’Honneur in 1927. He collected works of art and decorative objets d’art, which were bequeathed to the Louvre by his widow in 1938.