Henry Billings (July 13, 1901 – October 1985) was an American artist. He was a painter, illustrator, muralist, and art instructor active in New York City. He was a grandson of John Shaw Billings, a surgeon and the first director of the New York Public Library.
Henry Billings | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 13, 1901[1] Bronxville, New York |
| Died | October 1985[2] Sag Harbor, New York |
| Nationality | American |
Life and work
editBillings attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York, and was a member of the Art Colony of Woodstock, New York.[3]
His painting style shows an interest in the mechanical and machinery, as well as an attraction to surrealism.[4]
During the New Deal, Billings created a number of murals on commissions overseen by the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (later, the Section of Fine Arts). In 1936–37, he created a series of five murals depicting winter sports for the Lake Placid, New York post office.[5] He also contributed murals to post offices in Medford, Massachusetts, Wappinger Falls, New York, and Columbia, Tennessee, and a striking mural of a panther which still hangs near the ladies' powder room in Radio City Music Hall at Rockefeller Center.[1][6]
In 1945, Billings created a series of paintings for Life magazine depicting "strafing targets as they appear to the fighter pilot through the transparent rectangle of his reflector gunsight."[7]
Billings died in Sag Harbor, New York, in October 1985.
Selected works
editPaintings
edit- "White Boats", circa 1929 [8]
Public art
editSee also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c Howard Hull (1 January 1996), Tennessee Post Office Murals, The Overmountain Press, pp. 34–, ISBN 978-1-57072-030-7
- ^ Billings, Henry. "Number: 071-12-2279; Issue State: New York". U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "Henry Billings". AskArt. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ EDWARD, ALDEN JEWELL (Jan 22, 1933). "Exhibition by Henry Billings reveals the artist as being enrolled with the surrealistes". New York Times – via ProQuest.
- ^ Manchester, Lee (September 1, 2006). "Fine art adorns Placid post office" (PDF). Lake Placid News. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ a b "Panther Mural". Art and History. Rockefeller Center. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ Ground Strafing: Paintings show what U.S. fliers see during low-altitude attacks, LIFE, Time Inc, 30 July 1945, pp. 54–56, ISSN 0024-3019
- ^ "Lot Description: Henry Billings (1901–1985), White Boats". Christie's. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ Hamill, Kyna (Fall 2011). "New Insights into the Medford Post Office Mural" (PDF).
- ^ Carroll Van West (2001), Tennessee's New Deal Landscape: A Guidebook, Univ. of Tennessee Press, pp. 7–, ISBN 978-1-57233-108-2
External links
edit- Henry Billings letters and photographs, 1955, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Oral history interview with Henry Billings, 1964 Nov. 25, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution