Roy Charles Gamble (July 12, 1887 – March 30, 1972) was an American impressionist painter, muralist, and portraitist born in Detroit, Michigan. Early life and education Gamble was born into a family of five children – four brothers and one sister – of whom he was the eldest, to the union of George Gamble and Lena Gamble. His father was of Irish descent and had immigrated to America from England. His mother was of German descent and a native of Canada. His father, an accomplished brick mason, built the family home located on 14th Street in the central section of Detroit where it remains to this day, and in which Roy resided, along with his brother Marshall, until his death. His studies in the fine arts began during his senior year of high school under renowned Detroit Artist Joseph Gies, continuing at the Detroit School of Fine Arts where Gies was on the faculty, and which was headed by nationally known art educator John P. Wicker. His studies in the fine arts took him to New York City as well as Paris, France where many of his works were exhibited at the world famous Paris Salon, and where he associated with the Left Bank movement which included world renowned artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, among others. In New York he entered the Art Students League of New York where he studied under renowned artists William Merritt Chase, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Robert Henri. The major influences on his work were American Impressionism, Classicism, French Post-Impressionist, Social Realism and Ashcan School ideologies. He also acknowledged the influence of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. In Paris he studied at the prestigious Académie Julian of Rue du Dragon and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, both schools being situated in the 6th Arrondissement of Paris on the world famous Left Bank of the River Seine. There the young Gamble also socialized with legendary members of what came to be known as the Parisian avant-garde, among which were celebrated novelist Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo Stein, a well-known art critic. Career Gamble initially had an interest in commercial art and in fact did work for a while as an illustrator with the O.J. Mulford Advertising Company, becoming head of the advertising department where he oversaw production of illustrations of automobiles for marketing within the Detroit-based automobile industry. Upon returning home to his native Detroit