Henry Billings

For the American politician, see Henry M. Billings.

Henry Billings
Born	July 13, 1901[1] Bronxville, New York
Died	October 1985[2] Sag Harbor, New York
Nationality	American

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.

Life and work

Billings 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

Paintings

• "White Boats", circa 1929 [8]

Public art

• "Panther Mural", 1932, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center [6]
• "Golden Triangle of Trade." 1939, Post Office of Medford, Massachusetts[9]
• "Maury County Landscape", 1942, Post Office of Columbia, Tennessee[1][10]

See also

• Old Wappingers Falls Village Hall#Murals

References

1. Howard Hull (1 January 1996), Tennessee Post Office Murals, The Overmountain Press, pp. 34–, ISBN 978-1-57072-030-7
2. Billings, Henry. "Number: 071-12-2279; Issue State: New York". U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
3. "Henry Billings". AskArt. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
4. EDWARD, ALDEN JEWELL (Jan 22, 1933). "Exhibition by Henry Billings reveals the artist as being enrolled with the surrealistes". New York Times – via ProQuest.
5. 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.
6. "Panther Mural". Art and History. Rockefeller Center. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
7. 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
8. "Lot Description: Henry Billings (1901–1985), White Boats". Christie's. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
9. Hamill, Kyna (Fall 2011). "New Insights into the Medford Post Office Mural" (PDF).
10. 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

• 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