George Spencer Watson [also known as G. Spencer Watson] was born in London, England on 8 March 1869. After attending St. John's Wood School of Art in London, from 1889 to 1892, he studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London where he was awarded Gold Medals in 1889 and 1891, and the Landseer Scholarship in 1892. He subsequently worked as portrait and figure painter primarily in oils. By 1891, while still a student, Watson had begun exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London and continued to do so frequently until 1935, a year after his death. He also exhibited at the Fine Art Society, Grosvenor Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New English Art Club, New Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Ridley Art Club, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; and at the Paris Salon.