Born in Springdale, Arkansas, in 1918, Charles Banks Wilson grew up in Miami, where his artistic abilities became evident at an early age. Wilson attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1936-1940 before returning to Miami in 1943 to establish a permanent studio on Route 66 above his parents’ paint store.

He began teaching night classes for NEO while illustrating books and printing lithographs on his own press. He was later named chair of the art department and remained a faculty member until 1962. Today, Wilson’s work is owned by major museums including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and many private collections.

Before his death on May 2, 2013, Charles Banks Wilson was honored as an Oklahoma Cultural Treasure in 2001, awarded the first Governor’s Act Award in 1975, inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1977 and inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 2012.