Born in Sandgate, Kent England, Wood took art lessons as a youth before immigrating to the Untied States in 1910. He worked as a farmhand in Illinois for a while then traveled for two years around the United States. After marrying in Pensacola, Florida, he settled briefly in Ohio in 1912, moved to Seattle, Washington, and lived for a period in Portland, Oregon. In 1924 Wood moved to Texas where he painted and lived for the next seventeen years, first in Corpus Christi, then in San Antonio, and finally in nearby Helotes. He had painted and sketched in all his travels, but in San Antonio he studied with his friend Jose Arpa and began an enormous production that brought him a good deal of regional recognition and increasing prosperity from the sale of his popular paintings, often colored strongly with a good deal of dramatic effect. Wood’s first San Antonio studio was in the building that houses the Casa Rio Restaurant. He took a few students, including the fourteen year old Porfirio Salinas, whom he reportedly employed to sweep his studio. He and salinas often lunched nearby at Schilo’s Delicatessen on Commerce Street. During this period Wood sometimes signed his paintings G. Day or Trebor (Robert spelled backward), leaving substandard works unsigned. In 1941 Wood moved to Carmel, California, settling first in Laguna Beach, then in San Diego, and finally in Bishop where he lived until his death. Source: Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists, A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas Before 1942, by: John and Deborah Powers