This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Albany, New York, Charles Dix became a noted fine art painter of landscape and marine scenes. He was the son of John Adams Dix (1798-1879), U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War and Governor of New York in 1873 and 1874. Fort Dix is named for him.
Charles Dix studied for one year at Union College in Schenectady, New York, but reportedly his art talent was so apparent that the college president advised him to give up formal education and focus on being a painter. In the winter of 1857, Dix studied in Philadelphia with Edward Moran, and in the spring of that year made his exhibition debut at the National Academy of Design* in New York. From 1857 to 1861, he exhibited work at the National Academy including in 1858, A Headland at the Bay of Fundy, lent by its owner, Edward Moran.
In 1859, having traveled the Northeast coast to the Canadian border, Dix went to Gibraltar, and scenes from this trip earned him much positive attention, including at exhibitions of the Artists' Fund Society* in New York, Western Academy in St. Louis, and Art Association of Washington DC.
He was an officer for the duration of the Civil War, serving as First Lieutenant in the Fourteenth U.S. Regular Infantry, a regiment his father, General John A. Dix, had commanded. His Civil War commitment, however, denied him Associate membership in the National Academy of Design because he was unable to fulfill the time limit of his application.
Immediately after the War, he sailed for Europe for art study, and apparently he never returned to the United States. His travels included Barcelona and Rome and then division of his time between London and Rome with regular visits to the Isle of Capri and the Channel Islands along the coast of England.
In 1873, Charles Dix died in Rome at age thirty-three.
Sources:
David Dearinger, Editor, Paintings and Sculpture in the National Academy of Design
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams_Dix
* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx
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