Name/Title
"Caricature of Charles Bittinger"Artwork Details
Medium
Ink and watercoloor on paperSubject Person or Organization
Charles BittingerSeries
Caricatures of past Arts Club presidents by Clifford Kennedy Berryman.Context
Charles Bittinger (1879-1970)
Charles Bittinger became the Arts Club’s tenth president in 1933. A DC native, he elected to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the first two years of his scholarly career, before spending the next two at the Sorbonne in Paris, and another four at the Academies of Auguste Delecluse and Filippo Colarossi. After spending time in New York and Massachusetts, he moved back in 1930 to DC, where he spent the rest of his life.
Bittinger has a broad and fascinating career in the arts. He did official work for the United States Military in both World Wars painting camouflage and was taken on numerous expeditions throughout the Pacific Front. The Berryman caricature depicts him in the “South Sea Islands,” where most of his tours with the Military took place. After the war, he was tasked with witnessing the 1946 nuclear tests and then committing them to canvas. Aside from his government work, he was a prolific and highly successful artist. His murals on the Benjamin Franklin Institute are perhaps his best-known work, however he is featured prominently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Montgomery Alabama Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Academy of Sciences, among many other places. His painting “The Blue Room” is featured in the White House collection. Bittinger’s portrait of President James Monroe hangs in the Club’s 1st floor north parlor. Source: Max Gilder, intern for the Arts Club during the spring semester of 2021 while a student at the University of Maryland.Made/Created
Artist
Clifford Kennedy BerrymanUpdate Date
September 18, 2025