Atkinson, born in England, moved with his family to Oshawa, Ontario as a child because his father opened an English Drug Store in the town. He attended the University of Toronto, studying chemistry, and worked as a pharmacist before he took the decision to be an artist. He trained at Ontario School of Art in 1881 where he studied with Robert Harris, then in 1883-1884, attended at the Pennsylvania Academy, studying with Thomas Eakins. While in Philadelphia, he roomed with George Agnew Reid. In 1889, he travelled to Paris, France, to study at the Académie Julian and took private lessons with several teachers, of whom the most important was Paul-Louis Delance. That summer, he painted in Pont-Aven in Brittany, an art colony which favored North American students. From Pont-Aven, Atkinson wrote letters home, describing his experiences which were published in his hometown newspaper,The Vindicator. Paul Gauguin was in Pont-Aven that summer and one day when Atkinson was painting an old mill, Gauguin, passing by, told him to use stronger colour, saying that ), "If the sky is blue, paint the roof red. If the roof is blue, paint the sky green." It is clear that that Atkinson followed the broad outline of Gauguin`s advice and made his colour stronger. The American artist Robert Henri, in Pont-Aven in September that year, noted that Atkinson had keyed his colour up to the highest pitch. After Paris, Atkinson worked for some time in Devon, England before returning to Canada. He settled in Toronto. His paintings reveal that he never forgot the loose brushwork and modified form of Impressionism he had learned in France. The light in his work might be hazy, but the forms are luminous and his use of colour, though muted, is brighter than that of his predecessors. For the period, his work was progressive and as a result, he was made an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 1907, invited to be one of the founders of the Canadian Art Club in Toronto. In 2009, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in his hometown today remembered his work with an exhibition, William Atkinson, Gertrude Spurr Cutts, Florence McGillivray: Art and Identity in the Region of Durham. His paintings are in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Government of OntarioArt Collection, Toronto; the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; and The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax.
