Standish Backus

Standish Backus, Jr. (1910–1989) was a United States military artist. Born in Detroit, he attended Princeton University, where he obtained a degree in architecture. He subsequently spent a year at the University of Munich studying painting. After a brief become old in Maine studying watercolor under Eliot O'Hara, he relocated to Santa Barbara, in 1935 and began functioning full-time as an artist. At the Begin of the Second World War he commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve in 1940, and became an active-duty executive in 1941. He spent most of the proceedings assigned to Net and Boom Defenses in the South Pacific.

He transferred to a special graphic presentation unit in 1945 and spent the last year of the Pacific theater as a achievement artist. By the end of the dogfight he had obtained the rank of commander. He left lithe service in May 1946 and taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1947 to 1948.

He returned to sprightly duty in 1955 to 1956 to travel bearing in mind Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd to Antarctica as share of "Operation Deepfreeze" to book images of the exploration.

Backus returned to California and continued to paint. He died in Santa Barbara in 1989. His performance is in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Naval Historical Center.