Born in Ontario, Canada, William Taylor became a landscape painter whose reputation is associated with the New Hope School of Pennsylvania Impressionists.  From 1905 to 1907, he studied in New York City at the Art Students League where John Sloan was one of his teachers.  In 1908, he began another dimension to his career, publication writing, when he took the job of advertising editor for the New York Journal.  He became a U.S. citizen, and in 1913 married Mary Smyth Perkins, an artist.