leaving a U.S. base, signed and dated Sept. 3, image area 8" X 15" plus mat and frame, well listed artist and illustrator 1880-1943.....Worden G. Wood (1880-1943)He was an American marine painter and illustrator who was born in Brooklyn, and attended school at Trinity School and Columbia University. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he joined the US Naval Reserve and served aboard the Yankee clipper. Subsequently, he also served under General John J. Pershing in the expedition against Pancho Villa.In April 1917, he was assigned to the US Navy, and appears to have worked with the US Shipping Board (Emergency Fleet Corporation) in the development of camouflage for American merchant ships. On July 31, 1918, he was assigned to the camouflage branch of the Delaware River District in Philadelphia, but (for unknown reasons) was reassigned back to New York just ten days later.As an illustrator and art director, he worked for various book and newspaper publishers, including the MacMillan Company, the New York World, the New York Herald, and the Boston Herald (for which he wrote about yachting). As a marine painter, he was frequently commissioned to make paintings of ocean liners and other ships by major shipping firms.He was the grandson of USN Civil War Lieutenant John Lorimer Worden, who had commanded the ironclad USS Monitor in its battle with the Merrimac (the CSS Virginia) in 1862. He was also the father of Coast Guard artist Hunter Wood.Sources:Worden Wood, Marine Artist, Illustrator Had Served on World Staff. New York Times, November 21, 1943, p. 56.William Bell Clark on "Camouflage Painting on the Delaware" in Philadelphia in the World War 1914-1919. NY: Philadelphia War History Committee 1922 (pp. 318-322).