Career
He was an established portrait painter by 1711, when he was appointed a founding director of Godfrey Kneller"s Academy in London. Among his pupils there was George Vertue. Gibson"s sitters included a number of important public figures: Doctor Henry Sacheverell (1710.
Oxford, Magdalen College), John Flamsteed (1712.
Oxford, Bodleian Liberal), Sir Robert Walpole (untraced. Engineer G Bockman), Archbishop William Wake (Oxford, Christ Church Pict Gal) and Archbishop John Potter (London, Lambeth Pal).
His most constant patron was John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett (1663–1743), who commissioned a great number of originals and copies. Gibson"s career was interrupted in 1729-1731 by serious illness, and he was obliged to sell his collection and for a time retire to Oxford.