Norman S. Chamberlain

Painter. Chamberlain was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and received artistic training in Holland and France. His career was interrupted by World War I, after which he moved to California and resumed painting (1921). During the Depression, he worked for both the Public Works of Art Project and the Treasury Department Relief Art Project. He was commissioned by the latter to decorate the Hunting Park, California, post office. For the PWAP, Chamberlain painted several Indian subjects, the material for which he had gathered during summers in Taos in the the twenties and early thirties. Indian themes and mural design sketched in New Mexico continued to influence his work long after his return to California.

Charles Eldredge, Julie Schimmel, and William H. Truettner Art in New Mexico, 1900–1945: Paths to Taos and Santa Fe (Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1986)