Little is known of Gibbs. He was a Melbourne artist who painted with members of the Heidelberg School and a member of ‘Buonarotti Club’. The name of this club had been proposed by the founder, Cyrus Mason, to honour Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), the great Italian sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. The Buonarotti Club was instigated in May 1883 at the Prince’s Bridge Hotel (Young and Jackson’s), on the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets, in Melbourne. It flourished for the next four years, eventually concluding its activities during September 1887. Members included Frederick McCubbin, Louis Abrahams, Tom Roberts and Jane Sutherland.
Gibbs was tragically killed on a railway line while sleep walking.