Alfred Chadbourn (1921-1998) American, Oil on Canvas. Signed lower right. Inscribed MUHS on back. Depicts landscape with oilfield next to lake or river.

Depth: 2 3/4 in.

Overall size: 24 1/4 X 28 in.

Sight size: 16 X 19 3/4 in.

#1457 .

Born in Izmir, Turkey in 1921, at the height of the War for Turkish Independence, Alfred Chadbourn was the son of a US diplomat. When he was one they moved to France, where he was first introduced to art. When the family moved to the United States he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1940-42. Although fluent in French, he was assigned to the Pacific Theatre in World War II as a war artist, eventually becoming a tank commander. After suffering major wounds to his dominant hand in a bayonet fight with a Japanese soldier, he spent several months with a field surgeon reconstructing it, determined to continue painting once the war ended. Using the GI Bill, he studied further at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris from 1947-1950, becoming close with the novelist Colette and the playwright Cocteau, who helped organize his first solo exhibition. Returning to the US, he taught art at Queen’s College in New York, spent 15 years working at the Famous Artists School in Connecticut, and taught at the Portland Art School and Westbrook College in Maine from 1973 to 1981. A larger-than-life figure known for his self-deprecating wit and panache, he painted Impressionist landscapes all over the world, before succumbing to lung cancer in Yarmouth, Maine in 1998.