John Marshall Gamble was born in Morristown, New Jersey on November 25, 1863. When John was a teenager he moved with his family to Auckland, New Zealand. At age 20 he moved to San Francisco and began art training at the School of Design under Virgil Williams and Emil Carlsen.

After further training in Paris at Academie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin-Constant, he returned to San Francisco and opened a studio. When his studio and most of the city went up in flames in 1906, he relocated to Santa Barbara and remained there for the rest of his life. Gamble did no commercial artwork and earned his living throughout his career from the sale of his paintings.

For 25 years he served as color consultant for the Santa Barbara Board of Architectural Review. He is known for his landscapes which often include poppies, lupine and other wild flowers against the greens and purples of the California hills. He suffered a stroke in his studio and died on April 7, 1957.