[6][7] In the mid-twenties, local exhibitions of European art added the Post-Impressionists and the Blue Four to the list of painters and paintings that had an influence on Gile's work.

[10] Stylistically, along with the aforementioned vivid colors, Gile would use thick paint, "...applying loose, expressive brushstrokes of varying sizes.

He was the youngest of six children born to farmer James Henry Gile and his wife Ellen Alice Bemis who named him after the then-Governor of Maine, Seldon Connor.

[15] Though Gile was steadily employed at jobs other than art until the age of 50,[2] his artistic output, primarily from marathon weekends spent painting, was considerable.

[16] 1915, the year of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, marked the beginning of his maturation as an artist, despite the fact that Gile and the Society of Six would not exhibit their art beyond a few occasional paintings until 1923.

[17] From their first exhibition at the Oakland Art Gallery on March 11, 1923 to the sixth and final show as a group in 1928, Gile and the Society of Six were generally well received by critics.

[18] In the spring of 1927, Gile quit his job as an office manager for Gladding, McBean and Company and moved from his cabin on Chabot Road in Oakland (also known as the "Chow House" where the Society of Six would meet on weekends),[19] into a cottage he had kept since the early 1920s on San Francisco Bay in Tiburon, Marin County to paint full-time.