Cincinnati artist William E. Fay was born June 17, 1893 in Portuguese Angola, west Africa, the son of Congregational missionaries originally from the United States. Fay was raised by an uncle in Springfield, Ohio after his parents returned to Angola. Fay attended public schools in Springfield, Ohio, Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, and then enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati where he became a student of noted American artist Frank Duveneck (1848-1919).

While at the Academy he also studied with sculptor Clement Barnhorn (1857-1935) and painters Lewis Henry Meakin (1850-1917) and Herman Wessel (1878-1969). In June 1917, shortly after America’s entry into World War I, Fay enlisted in the United States Navy and served until May 1919.

William Fay enjoyed a long career in commercial art and advertising in Cincinnati, eventually rising to the position of Art Director for G. P. Gundlach & Co. He was the artist who drew the comic strip cartoons for "Jack and Judy in Bibleland,” which appeared first in the Cincinnati Post in 1947 and then eventually was carried by 75 daily and Sunday newspapers in the United States, Canada and Sweden.

As a fine artist, William Fay worked in both oils and watercolor. He was a popular member of the Cincinnati Art Club. In later years, Fay and his wife, artist Agnes Prizer Fay, moved their home and studio to Milford, Ohio, 16 miles east of Cincinnati. There Mr. Fay prolifically produced portraits, landscapes, western action scenes featuring Native Americans, and a series of likenesses of historically important Native American tribal chiefs based on the 19th century American photographic record. At the time of his death in 1978, Fay was believed to be the last actively working protégé of Frank Duveneck.