This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A noted military artist, Charles Bittinger was a camouflage artist in World Wars I and II and was an artist for the National Geographic Expedition and U.S. Eclipse Expedition to Canton Island in 1937. He was the official artist for Operations Crossroads and in this capacity, was one of the few artists selected to paint the atomic explosion of 1946 at the Bikini Atoll.
Charles Bittinger was also an inventor and served as a consultant and film tester for Eastman Kodak in the early days of the company.
Bittinger lived in New York from 1907-1914; Duxbury, Massachusetts from 1915 to 1929; and Washington DC from 1929 to 1970 where he was active in the Cosmos Club. He studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Sorbonne, and the Academy Delecluse, and with Jean Paul Laurens and Jean Leon Gerome. In New York, he studied at the Art Students League. He was a member of the Peconic Art Colony, spending summers in the Indian Neck area of Peconic, Long Island.
When Bittinger was in Paris, he encouraged watercolorist John Marin to join him. He and John Marin had become stepbrothers after his father, also named Charles Bittinger, had died when he was very young and his mother Isabelle married John Marin, Sr.
Sources include:
Carmen Bittinger, whose husband is grandson of the artist
Peter Hastings Falk (Editor), Who Was Who in American Art | |
Biography from Childs Gallery:
| When Charles Bittinger sent The Black Ribbon oil painting to the
Art Institute of Chicago for exhibition, he was living at 51 Boulevard
St. Jacques in Paris. He had studied at the Sorbonne from 1900 to
1902, as well as at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Académie Delecluse,
the Académie Colarossi, the Académie Julian (with J. P. Laurens) and
finally in Paris with J. L. Gérôme. In 1906 he participated
along with other American artists in the Salon of the Societé Nationale
des Beaux Arts. In the years between 1902 and 1906 he changed
addresses in Paris several times before his move to New York in
1907. The Black Ribbon was his first exhibition picture
at both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania
Academy. At the Art Institute he then exhibited almost
yearly through 1932 and at the Pennsylvania Academy through 1927.
While a resident in Paris he was a member of the Association des
Artistes Américains.
Charles Bittinger was born in Washington, D.C. June 27, 1879. The
young Bittinger attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
Boston from 1898-1900. He left MIT for study in Paris. Upon
his return to the United States, Bittinger continued an international
career as an exhibitor at major expositions. He also studied at
the Art Students League in New York. He won medals at the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, the Panama-Pacific Exposition in
1915 as well as prizes at National Academy of Design, the Duxbury Art
Association, the Society of Washington Artists, the Newport Art
Association, and the Landscape Club of Washington.
He was a
member of many of the most prestigious artists' associations including
the National Academy of Design (ANA 1912, NA 1937), the National Arts
Club, Allied Artists of America, the Salmagundi Club, American
Federation of Arts, Cosmos Club, The Colorists, the Guild of Boston
Artists, the Duxbury Art Association and was president of both the
Washington Art Club and the Society of Washington Artists.
Bittinger was able to move from Washington to Paris, New York,
Duxbury, Massachusetts, and Boston (where he had space in the Fenway
Studios), and finally to his birthplace, Washington, DC, while
keeping up social and artistic contacts in each of his former
residences. His work is in many museums including the St. Louis
Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the White House
Collection in Washington.
Written and submitted September 2005 by D. Roger Howlett, Child's Gallery, Boston
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Charles Bittinger is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Old Lyme Colony Painters
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
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