David Philip Wilson Works on a Portrait

This photograph shows noted portrait artist David Philip Wilson at work on a portrait of an unidentified person. Wilson was educated at the Carnegie Institute of Art and Design. He painted portraits of important figures of the 1940s through the 1970s, some of his work having been commissioned by the State of Ohio to hang in the State House. Among the portraits he painted were those of President Lyndon Johnson, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Potter Stewart and Harold H. Burton, several Ohio governors, celebrities including Gregory Peck, and astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and Gordon Cooper. His obituary in the January 13, 1994 "Columbus Dispatch" quotes his daughter, Cynthia Wilson, about his portrait of John Glenn: "I remember when that portrait was presented at Ohio State, John Glenn's mother was there, and she cried because he even painted this little scar he got when he was a child."

A March 16, 1969 "Columbus Dispatch" photograph of Wilson at work includes the caption: "David Philip Wilson, one of the most prolific portrait painters in the country, moved to Worthington in December, 1967." It mentions that his wife, Binnie, designed textiles, wallpaper and fabrics for companies in New York City, Buffalo, Cleveland and Columbus. A July 18, 1971 "Columbus Dispatch" article explains that the couple were childhood sweethearts who married in 1936 and lived in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, before moving in the early 1960s to San Antonio, Texas, where David Wilson was artist-in-residence at Trinity University, and then moving again to Worthington.

In addition to his work in portraiture, Wilson practiced marine painting. He lived in Worthington in the 1970s before moving to Naples, Florida.