Charles Baskerville, Jr (1896 - 1994) was an American artist. He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of Charles Baskerville and Mary Boykin Shaw.[1] He moved to New York with his family, and later studied at Cornell University. His studies were interrupted by World War I, in which he served as a lieutenant in the Rainbow Division and earned a Silver Star for gallantry.[2] His art career was again interrupted, this time by World War II, in which he served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Air Force; he was the Air Force's official portrait painter and was awarded the Legion of Merit by General Henry H. Arnold.[3] He is described as "an old-school portrait painter... [who] never owned a camera in his life".[4] Among the subjects of his portraits were Jawaharlal Nehru, Bernard Baruch, William S. Paley, Wallis Simpson, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Paul Mellon, Richard Rodgers, and Helen Hayes.[2] He once trekked through the Himalayas, by foot and pony, to paint a portrait of the King of Nepal.[5] Apart from portraits, he also painted murals, one of which is in the conference room of the Joint Committee on Military Affairs of the United States Congress.[3] He died in 1994, at the age of 98, in Manhattan.[2]
References[]
- ↑ NCPedia: Charles Baskerville
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 New York Times obituary of Charles Baskerville
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff of the United States Air Force pg. 233
- ↑ Bostic, Mary Burzlaff Inside the Art Studio: A Guided Tour of 37 Artists' Creative Spaces pg. 72
- ↑ South Plains College, Paintings in the Post Collection
The original article can be found at Charles Baskerville (painter) and the edit history here.