[1] He emigrated to the United States with his family as a teenager, settling in Alameda, California.
[1] He suffered from tuberculosis as a young man, and he attended the California School of Fine Arts.
[1] Gay co-founded the Society of Six with Selden Connor Gile, Maurice Logan, Louis Siegriest, Bernard von Eichman, and William H. Clapp, in Oakland, California.
[3] For art historian Nancy Boas, Gay had "an instinctive understanding of picture making, an original sense of color, and a desire to deal with important pictorial issues.
"[1] Gay later moved to Monterey, where he shared a studio with Clayton Sumner Price and he managed a furniture repair store.