Charles Baskerville (painter)

Charles Baskerville, Jr (16 April 1896 – 20 November 1994) was an American artist.

Charles Baskerville
Charles Baskerville in World War I
Born16 April 1896 
Died20 November 1994  (aged 98)
New York City 
OccupationPainter, muralist 

Baskerville was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of Charles Baskerville and Mary Boykin Shaw.[1] He moved to New York with his family. He later studied at Cornell University, where he was the art director for the university yearbook and The Cornell University Widow, a satire magazine.[2] 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.[3] While convalescing from a wound, he made sketches of his fellow soldiers; some of these sketches were published in Scribner's Magazine.[2]

After the war, he returned to Cornell, where he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. He graduated in 1919. He wrote a popular nightclub column for The New Yorker under the pseudonym of "Top Hat", while also working as a portrait painter.[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.[4]

He is described as "an old-school portrait painter... [who] never owned a camera in his life".[5] 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.[3] He once trekked through the Himalayas, by foot and pony, to paint a portrait of the King of Nepal.[6] 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.[4] He died in 1994, at the age of 98, in Manhattan.[3]

Bibliography

  • Tophat (April 18, 1925). "Around the clock". The New Yorker. 1 (9): 18.
  • (April 25, 1925). "When nights are bold". The New Yorker. 1 (10): 18.
  • (May 2, 1925). "When nights are bold". The New Yorker. 1 (11): 18.
  • (May 9, 1925). "When nights are bold". The New Yorker. 1 (12): 18.
  • (May 16, 1925). "When nights are bold". The New Yorker. 1 (13): 18.
  • Top Hat (June 6, 1925). "When nights are bold". The New Yorker. 1 (16): 20.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.