Charles Bosseron Chambers

Charles Bosseron Chambers was an American artist, known for figurative works portrayed in an illustrative manner, with many of them being either portraits or works with religious themes. He was an illustrator and teacher, as well as a painter. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1882. His father, a young Irish captain in the British Army, was a convert to the Catholic Church and his mother was from a French family, long-established in St. Louis. Charles, the youngest of several children, was sent to the Preparatory and Grammar Schools, connected with St. Louis University, in his earliest years and his education in his chosen art began under Louis Schultz of the Berlin Royal Academy, with whom he spent six years. His next master was Aleis Hrdliczka of the Royal Academy of Vienna and he later studied with Johannes Schumacher of Dresden for six years.

After matriculating at St. Louis University, Chambers began his professional career at Palm Beach, Florida, a place chosen because of his mother's failing health. From this period, his artistic productions date the fantastic figure compositions, exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition, together with portraits of Colonel Mitchell for the Missouri Historical Society, Joseph Jefferson, the great American actor, young Master Haven, Henry Phipps, Henry M. Flagler, Mrs. Voorhis and others.

In 1916, he moved to New York City and established himself in the Carnegie Studios, Carnegie Hall, where he occupied a splendid atelier. Here, he produced the Light of the World, the most popular religious painting of the early 1900s in the USA. He was a member of the Society of Illustrators, established in 1901, in New York City and the Salmagundi Club, an early important art club, in New York City. He illustrated Sir Walter Scott's, Quentin Durward, in the Scribner Classics for Young People. His work was exhibited at the well-known John Levy Galleries, in New York City, in the 1930s and is now in several public collections, in St. Louis and Chicago, including Chicago's St. Ignatius's Church, Missouri Historical Society, in St. Louis and the Osceola Club, in St. Augustine, Florida.

Painting is an art form that has spanned innumerable cultures, with artists using the medium to tell stories, explore and communicate ideas and express themselves. To bring abstract, landscape and still-life paintings into your home is to celebrate and share in the long tradition of this discipline.

When we look at paintings, particularly those that originated in the past, we learn about history, other cultures and countries of the world. Like every other work of art, paintings — whether they are contemporary creations or works that were made during the 19th century — can often help us clearly see and understand the world around us in a meaningful and interesting way.

Cave walls were the canvases for what were arguably the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict natural scenery through art. Portrait paintings and drawings, which, along with sculpture, were how someone’s appearance was recorded prior to the advent of photography, are at least as old as Ancient Egypt. In the Netherlands, landscapes were a major theme for painters as early as the 1500s. Later, artists in Greece, Rome and elsewhere created vast wall paintings to decorate stately homes, churches and tombs. Today, creating a wall of art is a wonderful way to enhance your space, showcase beautiful pieces and tie an interior design together.

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On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive collection of paintings and other fine art for your home or office. Browse abstract paintings, portrait paintings, paintings by popular artists and more today.