Walter Gay was born in Hingham, Massachusetts and became a painter who specialized in interiors. He developed his own style of painting genre subjects and “ignored the influences of modernist paintings he saw while studying in Paris beginning in 1876.” His works have an impressionist effect with the swift, broad brushstrokes, although he was not considered an Impressionist.

The muted tones and effects of light in an interior setting are indicated in Gay’s painting, In the Shop, 1886. A man is seen with his back turned towards to viewer working in his shop. The dark browns in the lower half of the painting are contrasted with the white of the man’s shirt, hair, and the light in the window.