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Henry Billings
1901–1987
BirthplaceBronxville, New York, United States of America
Death placeSag Harbor, New York, United States of America
BiographyThe murals, illustrations, and easel paintings of Henry Billings feature industrial forms rendered in a pure, stripped-down style reminiscent of his subjects' clean lines and utilitarian simplicity. Billings was a grandson of Civil War surgeon John Shaw Billings, who served as the first director of the New York Public Library. He was born in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York, and attended the exclusive St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He received his artistic training at New York's progressive Art Students League, where his teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller, and he worked in architects' and engineers' offices.
Billings first exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design in 1927, and he distinguished himself with paintings characterized by bold, colorful abstract shapes and forms inspired by machinery. He soon found commissions designing murals for the many new skyscrapers being erected in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1931 he staged a well-received solo exhibition in the new Squibb Building (an event covered by Time Magazine), and the following year he was represented in a mural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. A mural for the Ford Mobile Building at the 1939 New York World's Fair was featured in Life magazine. Billings' large-scale compositions were notable for picturing modern industrial forms and were intended for factories, railway and airport terminals, and skyscrapers. An advocate for close cooperation between mural painter and architect, he completed numerous important mural projects in the 1930s.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Billings also made book illustrations, many for books he wrote himself on a variety of subjects, including engineering projects and technology. As a printmaker, however, Billings is known only for his print Marine Elements (TF 1996.72), and the details of his life and career are largely unpublished. He was a member of the artists' colony of Woodstock, New York. Between 1935 and 1953, Billings taught at Bard College in New York, and he served as a designer and consultant for several programs and organizations, such as the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (known now as UNICEF) and the 1964 New York World's Fair. In his later years, Billings maintained a home in Sag Harbor, on the eastern end of Long Island, New York, where he died at the age of eighty-four.
Billings first exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design in 1927, and he distinguished himself with paintings characterized by bold, colorful abstract shapes and forms inspired by machinery. He soon found commissions designing murals for the many new skyscrapers being erected in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1931 he staged a well-received solo exhibition in the new Squibb Building (an event covered by Time Magazine), and the following year he was represented in a mural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. A mural for the Ford Mobile Building at the 1939 New York World's Fair was featured in Life magazine. Billings' large-scale compositions were notable for picturing modern industrial forms and were intended for factories, railway and airport terminals, and skyscrapers. An advocate for close cooperation between mural painter and architect, he completed numerous important mural projects in the 1930s.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Billings also made book illustrations, many for books he wrote himself on a variety of subjects, including engineering projects and technology. As a printmaker, however, Billings is known only for his print Marine Elements (TF 1996.72), and the details of his life and career are largely unpublished. He was a member of the artists' colony of Woodstock, New York. Between 1935 and 1953, Billings taught at Bard College in New York, and he served as a designer and consultant for several programs and organizations, such as the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (known now as UNICEF) and the 1964 New York World's Fair. In his later years, Billings maintained a home in Sag Harbor, on the eastern end of Long Island, New York, where he died at the age of eighty-four.