CHARLES BITTINGER (American, 1879 - 1970). Ocean View, 1935, Oil on canvas-board. Signed, dated ("12 July 1935") and dedicated lower left hand corner. Framed.
ARTIST PROFILE: Charles Bittinger was born on June 27, 1879. Originally from Washington D.C., he studied for two years at MIT, with the intention of becoming a scientist. He then switched to art, and went off to Paris to study at various French art schools, among them the École des Beaux-Arts. There he married a concert singer named Edith Gay, and returned to the U.S. to study at the Art Students League. During World War I, he was one of the artists who studied at a camouflage training school established in New York by William Andrew MacKay (Yates 1919). He also worked for the U.S. Navy at Eastman Kodak Laboratories with physicist Loyd A. Jones on the development of low visibility ship camouflage. Between the wars, Bittinger relocated to Washington D.C., and began experimenting with the use of scientific techniques for producing novel works of art. In 1929, he painted three murals for the Franklin Institute, depicting stages in the life of Benjamin Franklin. When observed in incandescent light, each painting appeared to be a certain picture, but when viewed under ultraviolet light, it revealed an entirely different picture. In 1935, Bittinger exhibited another work in which Charles Lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight appeared under normal viewing conditions, but the same painting became the Mona Lisa when viewed through an optical instrument that Bittinger had invented. - 12" x 16"; Frame: 17" x 22" Estimate $500-700
