Ernest N. Townsend (1893-1945)
Ernest N. Townsend (1893-1945)
Born in 1893 in New York City, Ernest Nathaniel Townsend was a landscape painter, muralist, and children’s book illustrator. He first began studying art at age 14 while working as an apprentice and assistant to mural painters before attending Morris High School, the first public high school in the Bronx. After graduation, he studied painting at the National Academy of Design from 1911 to 1914. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club, an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design and exhibited with the New York Watercolor Club and the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Among Townsend’s memberships, the Salmagundi Club seems to have been the most significant to his career. In 1923, fellow artist Walter Farndon sponsored his nomination to the club, and Townsend exhibited there frequently throughout the rest of his life. As a member he joined many committees, including the Admissions Committee, Development Committee, and Entertainment Committee, and served as the Editor of the Salmagundi Bulletin for three years. The most influential instructors and mentors in his career included many club members such as, Leon Kroll, Charles Hawthorne, Ernest D. Roth, George Pearse Ennis, and Walter Farndon. In his autobiographical dossier, Townsend remarks that “most of the aid and assistance I have been given in art has been from kindly Salmagundians,”[1] indicating the fellowship and friendship he found with the group.
[1] Autobiographical dossier, 1945, courtesy of Salmagundi Club Archives
