Charles Robert Knight (1874 – 1953)

Most folks familiar with Knight’s work quite rightly associate him with paleoart, the depiction of animals long extinct, especially dinosaurs and ice-age megafauna.  His portrayal of a triceratops squaring off against a Tyrannosaurus rex, is iconic.  But from an early age I was also familiar with his paintings of modern birds.  What I did not know was that he had very poor vision.  While he is best known for his museum murals and paleoart, in fact he did influence me by his style, which, in its own way, was very like that of Jaques, reminding me of art deco.  But he worked in oils, did not indulge in excessive detail, and focused much more on design.  He did not do a lot of birds, but those I have seen reproduced are very pleasing and I’m sure they influenced me at least somewhat when I was young.