Self portrait on thin paper, unsigned and dated 1927-1928 lower right. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, William Charles Palmer (1906-1987) studied at the Art Students League under Thomas Hart Benton and studied fresco painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France. During the depression he painted murals funded by the WPA in public buildings in Massachussetts, District of Columbia, New York and many other states. His work has been displayed worldwide including at the Paris Salon, Pennsylvania Academy, National Academy of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, and the Kansas City Art Institute. He is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, the White House, Cranbrook Academy of Art, the National Gallery in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was director of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute School of Art in Utica, New York