He was the son of Charles-Louis Willaert, a decorator and portrait painter, and he was the eldest in a family of thirteen children. His brothers Arthur (1875-1942) and Raphaël Robert Willaert (1878-1949) were also painters.
He received his training at the Academy in Ghent, with Theodoor Caneel and Louis Tytgadt. At twenty-three in 1884, he himself became a teacher at the academy. From 1887 to 1890 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris.
Ferdinand Willaert was an avid traveler and regularly stayed in the south, which had a clear impact on his style. In 1887 he traveled with A. Marcette to Spain and Morocco, where he discovered the real light. Also between 1890 and 1892 he traveled to Morocco with his friends Albert Lebourg and Ignacio Zuloaga. On his return, he exhibited his works on Tangier at the Cercle artistique et littéraire de Gand, which was the beginning of his artistic breakthrough.
In 1893 he became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1907 he became secretary of the circle. He then also became a member of the Paris Société du Salon d'Automne and of the Société Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
In 1899 he became a member of the jury of the Belgian Salons, and in that capacity he was involved in the furnishing of various salons in Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. It is from then on that he himself took part in foreign exhibitions in Turkey, France, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Italy, Spain, Russia, Egypt and the United States, where he was awarded several times.
In 1901 he was appointed director of the Academy in Dendermonde, a position he would hold until 1934.
Ferdinand Willaert was married for the first time to Léontine Van Loo in 1893. After the death of his first wife in 1904, he remarried on 21 March 1908 to Valentine Fontan, who was born in the south of France, daughter of the painter Joseph-Auguste. Fontan and herself an artist who painted still lifes, flowers, interiors, portraits, and scenes with figures. They were located at 7 Drabstraat in Ghent. The couple had a daughter named Marguerite in 1918. After their marriage, they spent the holidays at Valentine's birthplace in Magnan in the Gers department in southwestern France.
Ferdinand Willaert became a knight in the Order of the Crown and an officer in the Order of Leopold. After his death he was interred at the Campo Santo in Sint-Amandsberg.
