Garnet Wolesey Jex (October 19, 1895 – September 21, 1979) was an American artist and historian. Born in

Kent, Ohio Kent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 28,215 at the 2020 Census. The city is counted as pa ...

, he moved with his family to Washington, D.C., at the age of four. He remained in the Washington area until his death. Jex enlisted in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After the war, he worked as a

medical illustrator A medical illustration is a form of biological illustration that helps to record and disseminate medical, anatomical, and related knowledge. History Medical illustrations have been made possibly since the History of medicine, beginning of medicin ...

for the

Army Medical Corps A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians. List of medical corps The following organizations are examples of medica ...

for two years and attended the

Corcoran College of Art and Design The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...

. He earned a BA in 1927 and a Master's degree in 1931, both from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

. While completing his master's degree, he worked as an art editor for the journal

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

. Later, Jex was employed as the Director of Graphics for the U.S.

Bureau of State Services The Bureau of State Services (BSS) was one of three principal operating agencies of the United States Public Health Service (PHS) from 1943 until 1966. The bureau contained the PHS divisions that administered cooperative services to U.S. states ...

, and worked as an artist and designer at the

United States Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant S ...

for 26 years, until his retirement in 1962. In 1965, Jex authored a history book of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

entitled ''The Upper Potomac in the Civil War'', based on a series of 51 watercolor paintings. Jex also known for his paintings of dinosaurs and other

Permian Age The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

animals including those created for

dioramas A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle mode ...

at the Dallas Exposition on behalf of the United States Texas Centennial Commission, and at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

for which he painted a 15 foot long mural. Jex was highly renowned for his landscape paintings of the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

and the

C & O Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, wh ...

. Although a flood destroyed the canal in 1924, Jex's works remain as a visual record of the once commercially important structure. While many of Jex’s works are held in private collections, others can be found on public display at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

and at

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac River, Potomac and Shenandoah River, Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes t ...

Collections

* National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC *

* Kiplinger Collection, Historical Society of Washington, DC *

National Museum of Health and Medicine The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, DC. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862; it became the NMHM in ...

, Otis Historical Archives, Jex Medical Illustration Collection *

Museum of the Shenandoah Valley The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley is located at 901 Amherst Street, Winchester, Virginia. The Museum endeavours to preserve and enrich the cultural life and heritage of the Valley. Located on the largest green space in the city of Winchester, th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jex, Garnet 1895 births 1979 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American landscape painters Potomac River Painters from Washington, D.C. Medical illustrators United States Army personnel of World War I United States Army soldiers People from Kent, Ohio Painters from Ohio Corcoran School of the Arts and Design alumni George Washington University alumni