Born in St. John’s Newfoundland in 1898, Robert Wakeham Pilot is known for his landscapes painted in an Impressionist style.

He was perhaps most significantly influenced by his stepfather Maurice Cullen, who introduced Pilot to the arts when his mother married Cullen in 1910.

After having studied under William Brymner in Montreal, Pilot traveled to Paris in 1920 to study at the Acadèmie Julian, and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1922. While in France he also visited the artists’ colony at Concarneau in Brittany, where he absorbed the work of the Impressionists and later incorporated their style into his own work.

Upon his return to Canada he was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy, later serving as RCA president from 1952 to 1954. He had several successful exhibitions throughout his lifetime, and after passing away in Montreal in 1967, Pilot was honoured with a retrospective exhibition in 1969 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.