Gordon Waverly Gilkey was born in Linn County, Oregon, in 1912, and he grew up in Albany. He taught art classes at Albany College, now known as Lewis & Clark College, while still in high school. In 1933, he earned a bachelor's degree at Albany College, and in 1936, he earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Oregon. In 1939, he and Vivian E. Malone were married; they later had two children. That same year, he became a professor of art at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and after the war, he commanded a unit tasked with recovering artworks stolen by the Nazis. He returned to Oregon in 1947, and became chair of the art department at Oregon State College, now known as Oregon State University. He later became dean of the college of humanities and social sciences, and developed it into the college of liberal arts. In 1964, he was appointed by Governor Mark Hatfield to chair the planning council that created the Oregon Arts Commission. After he retired from OSU in 1977, he was a curator at the Portland Art Museum and taught part-time at the Museum Art School, which is now the Pacific Northwest College of Art. He died in 2000.