George Gardner Symons (c1861 - 1930). George Gardner Symons was an American impressionist painter. He was born in either 1861 or 1863 in Chicago, Illinois. Attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Symons also studied in Europe and won awards at the National Academy of Design and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Symons was one of the plein-air painters who built their studios in Laguna Beach, California during the early 1900s. He died in Hillside, New Jersey in 1930.