Charles Baskerville (painter)

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