[1] The Great Famine of Ireland forced his family to move to America, when he was 11 years old.

[2] Gay trained in Albany on the advice of James Hart, his brother William Hart, and George Henry Boughton, artists who recognized Gay's talent while he was still a child.

[3] In 1862, Gay went to Karlsruhe in Germany to continue his studies under the artists Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Karl Friedrich Lessing.

[1] Gay was a member of the New York Artists Fund Society, National Academy of Design, and the Lotos Club.

He exhibited in museums and galleries throughout America and he painted murals for public libraries in Mt.