Painter William Robinson was known as much for his teaching as his art. Even before graduating from the Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1884, he was giving instruction in Boston, Malden, and South Braintree, Massachusetts. Between 1885 and 1889, he was on the faculty of Baltimore's Maryland Institute. He left Baltimore to study in Paris at the Academie Julian under Benjamin Constant and Jules Lefebvre. By 1891, he was back in the United States, exhibiting for the first time at the National Academy Annual and embarking on a series of teaching posts: Drexel Institute, Philadelphia (1891-3), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1892-9), Pottstown High School, Pennsylvania (1893-4), and Teachers College, Columbia University (1894-1904).
At the National Academy, Robinson was the recipient of the Carnegie Prize in 1910 and the First Altman Prize in 1929. He taught the Academy's Women's class from 1920 to 1934 and served on the Council in 1919-22 and 1926-7. Between 1914 and 1921 he was president of the American Water Color Society. During his later years, "Robbie" (as his friends called him) was a familiar presence at the art colony at Old Lyme, CT. He taught nearby at the Connecticut College for Women. The last decade of his life was one of ill health and little activity.
