Robert Chesley Osborn Art

Robert Chesley Osborn was an American cartoonist, satirist, illustrator and author. In a lighter vein, he also wrote a trilogy of books about catching trout, shooting quail and shooting ducks. His illustrations appeared in a score of socially conscious books including Snobs, by Russell Lynes; The Exurbanites, by A.C. Spectorsky; Trial by Television, by Michael Straight; C. Northcote Parkinson's Parkinson's Law; and The Insolent Chariots, by John Keats. His drawings of Charles Chaplin formed the basis of an art exhibition in 1987. Reviewing that show in the New York Times, John Russell said, "Few people have a nimbler, wittier or more versatile way with pen and pencil than Robert Osborn." His work is in the collections of the Beinecke Library at Yale, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. Through the years, he continued to draw for the U.S. Navy, publishing his cartoons in Naval Aviation News, replacing the character of Dilbert with a wise old navy pilot named Grampaw Pettibone.