[5] Gwathmey attended North Carolina State College in Raleigh, studying business from 1922-1923.

[5] In 1929 and 1930, Gwathmey was the winner of the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, which allowed him the opportunity to study abroad in the summers.

He traveled to Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Munich, and London.

[5] Throughout his studies, Robert Gwathmey was influenced by many artists, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, and Rufino Tamayo from the European modernists, French satirist Honoré Daumier, realist painter Jean-François Millet[6] along with Daumier and Degas.

[6] In Elia Kazan's novel The Arrangement when Evangelos is describing to Florence the property that she can keep for herself he says: "...all paintings, even that by Picasso and Gwathmey."