Charles Albin

Charles Albin was well known in his day as a portrait painter, and later as a society photographer, best known for his portraits of Lillian Gish, John Barrymore and Mary Astor ; it was his portrait of Astor that brought her to Hollywood fame. A native of Montreal, Albin emigrated to the United States when he was ten years old; as a youth he wished to join the Franciscan Order, and, after manifesting a talent for art, was sent to Frank Duverneck's studio in Cincinnati to get training to become an artist of devotional paintings. When commanded to return to the cloister, Albin left the order and went out on his own as a painter, and later a photographer. He was active in New York City for about twenty years; in the '30s, he went west to California, where he had a studio in Culver City, where he painted still lifes. In the 1940s, he gave it all up and returned to the Franciscan Order and became a monk.