Born in Fife - Scotland, attended architecture school from 1929 at the University of London, started painting in 1930 and attended 'Slade School'.
During the war he was a member of the Irish group 'White Stag Group' .
He exhibited in Paris in 1948, and probably he got in contact with Dotremont, Alechinsky and others from the CoBrA movement here.
This contact had a great impact on Gilbert, he saw that he was close related to these people in his art.
He was very involved in the 'Bregnerod congress', visited Svanberg in Sweden, got some of his pictures sold in Denmark.
After this meeting with CoBrA his style changed to a more abstract style, as shown on the cover of 'CobraBibliotheket' volume 10 from 1950.