Standish backus biography of william

American naval officer and painter (–)

Standish Backus, Jr. (April 5, – October 12, ) was a United States military artist.^[1]

Biography

Born in Detroit, he attended Princeton University, where he obtained in a degree in architecture.

He then spent a year at the University of Munich studying painting. After a brief period in Maine studying watercolor under Eliot O'Hara, he relocated to Santa Barbara, in and began working full-time as an artist. At the start of the Second World War he commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve in , and became an active-duty officer in He spent most of the war assigned to Net and Boom Defenses in the South Pacific.

Standish backus biography of william

He transferred to a special graphic presentation unit in and spent the last year of the Pacific theater as a combat artist. By the end of the war he had obtained the rank of commander. He left active service in May and taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara from to

He returned to a