Charles Lewis Wrenn
BiographyCharles Lewis Wrenn (18 Sep 1880–28 Oct 1952) was an artist, portraitist, and illustrator. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved to New York City around 1900, living in Manhattan. After graduating from Princeton in 1903, he studied art at the Art Students League, the New York Art School, and with the impressionist painter William Merritt Chase (1849–1916). From 1911 to 1917 he drew illustrations for stories in The Red Book Magazine, People’s Home Journal, and The Housewife; and painted cover illustrations for the pulp magazine Breezy Stories. He also ilustrated numerous books, including the five young adult novels about World War I written by Major Sherman Crockett.
In 1918, not being accepted for military service, he volunteered for a year as stretcher bearer in France for the Red Cross, his passport at the time describing him as 5' 10 1/2", blue eyes, thin face, with a Roman nose and a scar on his right thumb.
After the Great War ended in 1919, he studied art in Morocco, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Tunis, Egypt, and Great Britain. He returned to the U.S. in 1920. From 1920 to 1936 he sold freelance pulp magazine covers to The Danger Trail, People’s Magazine, Ranch Romances, Three Star Magazine, and War Stories. In 1936 he moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, where he painted portraits and landscapes for the rest of his life.
On October 5, 1907, he married Helen Gibbs Bourne of New Jersey. We don’t know whether they had children.
Bibliography (as illustrator)
Molly Brown’s Sophomore Days (1912)
The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal (1913)
Uncle Noah’s Christmas Inspiration (1914)
Two American Boys with the Allied Armies (1915)
Guns of Europe (1915)
Hosts of the Air (1915)
Tree of Appomattox (1916)
Boy Scouts under Sealed Orders (1916)
Two American Boys in the French War Trenches (1916)
Two American Boys with the Dardanelles Battle Fleet (1916)
Two American Boys Aboard a Submersible (1917)
Polly’s Senior Year at Boarding School (1917)
Boy Scouts Afloat (1917)
The Great Sioux Trail (1918)
For the Freedom of the Seas (1918)
Two American Boys with Pershing in France (1918)
The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis (1919)
Other links
Lake Chapala Artists