Painter on oil and watercolour of landscapes, portraits and cattle, also illustrator and stained glass designer. In 1882 begn work as an apprentice lithographer to Gilmour and Dean but soon turned his attention to black and white drawings for newspaper illustrations. These attracted early recognition together with his work in stained glass design for the firm of Guthrie and Wells. Studied probably as an evening student at the Glasgow Academy and Holbein Academy, attending classes until 1885 and again in 1889 as an apprentice artist. In 1887 he joined the staff of th Glasgow Weekly Citizen producing pen drawings to illustrate serial instalments of novels. Became friendly with Rennie Mackintosh who had given him a set of bedroom furniture as a wedding present in 1893.
His early works in oil were of portraits, often ladies reclining beside streams (as this one), but his greatest success came as a painter of cattle and for his beautiful soft pastel coloured landscapes often with the introduction of a mill or an old steading set amid trees and a stretch of quiet water. More concerned with the moods of nature than with mere transcription of facts. Primarily a decorative artist, his early paintings owed much to Rossetti and Burne Jones while his cattle paintings were influenced by the tenderness and veracity that were the hallmark of James Maris. 
His secular stained glass designs are considered his best, also the Praise Window at the east end of Upper Largo parish church, Bellahouston church and Skelmorlie church but his most important stained glass work was the window of St Andrew's Scottish Church in Buenos Aires, a commission which lasted ten years before its completion  in 1910. 
He was a member of the Glasgow School, sharing a studio with Harrington Mann. One of the most enigmatic members of the Group, bridging a gap, as Ailsa Turner pointed out, between the Glasgow Boys and Art Nouveau, the clearest evidence of which is his art nouveau portrait en plein air of St Agnes. In 1896 he painted an important series of landscapes at Grez, some with cattle, but more atmospheric in character than his later work. In the last year of his life he was made Director of Design, Glasgow School of Art. He was a quiet man, greatly respected and liked by his colleagues and friends, possessing a fine sense of humour. Elected ARSA in 1918 and RSA in 1924. Exhibited RSA continuously from 1905-1939, a total of 44 works, as well as the Glasgow Institute (96) and Aberdeen Art Society 1921-1931.

This a rare watercolour by Gauld, by decent through the family of the artist.