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Glass was a native of Aberdeen where he was born in 1880 (and not in Ellon in 1885 as traditionally recorded). Although he was trained at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, he lived nearly all his life in Edinburgh. He first came to the Scottish capital in 1906 to further his art education by attending the Royal Scottish Academy's Life School, where he was awarded the Maclaine- Watters Bronze Medal and the Chalmers-Jervise Prize. After a further period of study in Paris and painting in Italy, he settled in Edinburgh in 1913. During the First World War, he served in Ireland and France with the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry. Glass found his subjects chiefly in Iona and the Scottish Highlands, where the varied colouring, the precipitous shapes of the landscape and the snowy mountain peaks attracted him. He painted large canvases as well as smaller pictures, and “The Coolins, Skye" was purchased for the Art Gallery at Kelvingrove by Glasgow Corporation. In 1934, he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1959 was elevated to Academician rank. He was also a Past-President of the Society of Scottish Artists and of the Scottish Arts Club.