Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Will Howe Foote was an impressionist painter whose style was much influenced by the tonalist and the following impressionist painters of Old Lyme, Connecticut. He was one of that colony's earliest artists.

He was the nephew of artist William Henry Howe and in 1901 accompanied his uncle to Old Lyme whose beauties had been touted to the young Foote by Clark Voorhees, whom he had met in France.

Both Will Howe Foote and his uncle were raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan where his father held an executive position in a prominent furniture company. The father encouraged his son's obvious art talent, and in 1894, young Foote began his art study at the Art Institute of Chicago. There he became close friends with Frederick Frieseke, with whom he also attended the Art Students League in New York City. In 1897, they went to Paris, and he attended the Julian Academy under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. He exhibited twice at the Paris Salon, and in 1900 returned to the United States and exhibited frequently at the National Academy.

His primary residence was Old Lyme, Connecticut where he first painted in 1901, and in 1902, he became Frank DuMond's assistant at the Old Lyme Summer School, sponsored by the Art Students League of New York. In 1903, he went to Cos Cob, Connecticut.

In 1907, he married Helen Kirtland Freeman, a painter at in Old Lyme, and they built a house there.

His impressionist and tonalist styles were much influenced by Old Lyme painters Childe Hassam and Willard Metcalf, but interestingly he did not paint the Old Lyme landscape extensively. He and his wife traveled frequently, and in the winters, seeking warmer climates, he painted in Bermuda, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Southwest.