Pair of Dolphins

Charles R. Knight was a significant early twentieth-century artist and writer, with deep ties to New York City institutions including The Met, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), and New York Zoological Society (now Wildlife Conservation Society). Trained at the Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Students League, Knight began his career doing commercial illustrations and working for the stained-glass designer J. & R. Lamb. Knight’s principal creative identity as an artist is with the AMNH, where, from the mid-1890s into the 1930s, he produced images of dinosaurs as well as prehistoric and living animals for installation spaces. He also completed murals for numerous other American museums and zoos. Pair of Dolphins may be a preparatory drawing related to a painting commission for AMNH. During this time, Knight also painted fish species for the United States Fish Commission and the United States Bureau of Fisheries.