"National Geogrpahic 100th Anniversary ACW issues" Topic

Hello

I normally post on the Napoleonic areas of TMP, as that's what I collect, etc. But I thought I'd share my latest blog post:

link

… concerning a 20 year obsession I've had with tracking down some issues of NG magazine that I'd had as a kid, but lost somewhere along the line.

The reason for the obsession was that I loved, and still love, the battlefield paintings of Robert and Dorothy Nicholson. More than 20 years of searching has never turned up anything about these people (except one or two more or less irrelevant – and certainly uninformative – photo credits), so if anyone knows anything about them, please tell all!

I hope all of this might be of interest to some of you ACW folks!

Cheers

Seb

PS – If anyone knows of any more ACW themed articles that appeared in NG during their 100th anniversary commemorative series, please let me know!

Hi Seb,

Your post intrigues me; here's why.

For decades, I've admired the battlefield paintings in National Geographic's hardbound books "The Civil War" and "The Revolutionary War", which were executed by an artist named Richard Schlecht. I'm also a fan of the battlefield paintings in "The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War" by Bruce Catton; its battlefield paintings were done by David Greenspan. I'm sure there are plenty of other older TMPers who remember these and got loads of inspiration from these paintings when they were younger. If I'm not mistaken, all three of these books were originally published in the 1960s.

So when you mentioned Robert and Dorothy Nicholson, I was just about certain that they did the paintings in the two National Geographic books I just mentioned. But when I checked my copies, I found out that I was wrong. Until today, I'd never heard of them, and would now like to see what their work is like. It might be worth a trip to my local Half Price Books to see if it might have any of the 1961 and 1963 NG back issues that you've referenced here.

If you haven't seen any of the paintings in the three books I mentioned, I think you'd like them.

Jeff

I think I have a couple of those issues hidden away. I bought them back in the late '70s, when they were easier to come by.
Life Magazine did a series on the War back in 1960, which I have fond memories of. I looked these up in the library back in 1996. The artwork wasn't as great as I remembered it, but was still evocative, particularly the picture of the Army of the Cumberland storming Missionary Ridge. I blame Life for my wanting to build a western ACW army.

Grelber

@ Jeff: thanks for those recommendations. I've ordered the two Civil War titles, by Jordan and Catton, from Amazon (dirt cheap used copies), and eagerly await their arrival!

Cheers, Seb

@ Jeff: a mighty big thank you, buddy. It turns out it was David Greenspan's work that has haunted me all these years. So thank you very much for putting me on track. Cheers, Seb