Garnet Jex

Garnet Wolesey Jex (October 19, 1895 – September 21, 1979) was an American player and historian. Born in Kent, Ohio, he moved taking into account his relatives to Washington, D.C., at the age of four. He remained in the Washington Place until his death.

Jex enlisted in the U.S. Army in World War I. After the war, he worked as a medical illustrator for the Army Medical Corps for two years and attended the Corcoran College of Art and Design. He earned a BA in 1927 and a Master's degree in 1931, both from George Washington University. While completing his master's degree, he worked as an art editor for the journal Nature. Later, Jex was employed as the Director of Graphics for the U.S. Bureau of State Services, and worked as an player and designer at the United States Public Health Service for 26 years, until his retirement in 1962.

In 1965, Jex authored a history folder of the American Civil War entitled The Upper Potomac in the Civil War, based on a series of 51 watercolor paintings. Jex with known for his paintings of dinosaurs and additional Permian Age animals including those created for dioramas at the Dallas Exposition upon behalf of the United States Texas Centennial Commission, and at the National Museum of Natural History for which he painted a 15 foot long mural.

Jex was highly renowned for his landscape paintings of the Potomac River and the C & O Canal. Although a flood destroyed the canal in 1924, Jex's works remain as a visual baby book of the in the make public of commercially important structure. While many of Jex’s works are held in private collections, others can be found upon public display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.