Although he exhibits in Aotearoa regularly, Max Gimblett is usually described as an expatriate painter. In 1956, he left for London, where he worked for the export textile division of Samuel Courtauld & Co. He returned in 1958 only to sail for England again in 1959 and travel throughout Europe. In 1962, he moved to Toronto, where he was apprenticed to a potter and studied drawing at the Ontario College of Art. In 1965, he attended painting and drawing classes at the San Francisco Art Institute. He painted in Bloomington, Indiana, from 1967 to 1970, and in Austin, Texas, from 1970 to 1972. He then moved to New York City, where he still lives.

In 1979, he became a dual American and New Zealand citizen. He was represented in the Sarjeant Gallery’s touring exhibition Seven Painters/The Eighties (1982–83). In 1984, the Auckland City Art Gallery (now Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki) presented Transformation: Recent Paintings by Max Gimblett. He has travelled widely and been awarded numerous fellowships or residencies. A major monograph was published in 2002. He was appointed Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015 and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the University of Waikato (2017) and Auckland University of Technology (2019).