Painter and printmaker Henry Gilbert Foote was born in 1896 in Sulfur Springs, Texas and raised in Oklahoma City, OK. His parents, Emma and Arthur Foote, owned a floral greenhouse specializing in orchids, inspiring Henry’s later work in floral imagery. His formal art education took place at the Chicago Art Institute where he studied painting and printmaking, and where he exhibited in 1924, ‘25, and ‘26. He would remain in Chicago for the majority of his life, but he traveled frequently, and on trips to Europe an the American Southwest would capture the villages and landscapes he came across.

Foote worked as a commercial artist and catalog designer for Montgomery Ward while also producing his own fine art, both for personal interest and on commission. Among his regular clients was the Franklin Hollister Company, for whom he created several original landscapes and city scenes that were recreated with offset lithography for their distribution among the company employees. After retiring, he relocated to Connecticut to live closer to his son.
Henry Gilbert Foote died in Connecticut in 1986.