Charles Clyde Squires was born in Salt Lake City in 1883. He was an illustrator for national magazines such as Western Romances, Life, and Women's Home Companion and covers for pulp novels such as Western Romance.  He died in Great Neck, York in 1970.

As a young man Squires was apprenticed to a Salt Lake City engraver. At age 18, he went to New York to study art. He was a student at the New York School of Art where Robert Henri, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Frank DuMond, and Kenneth Pyle taught him and advised him on his work.

In 1906, Life magazine accepted the first of Squires's work. When Squires's first child was born his most famous work Her Giftappeared on the cover of Success. Other examples of his work are Nineteenth Century Gentleman (1920) and Held by the Enemy(1930).

Biography adapted from Artists of Utah.

Charles Squires, a nephew of Salt Lake painter Harry Squires as well as cousin to Lawrence Squires was actually older than John Held Jr. and had come to New York before him. Studying first with J.T. Harwood in Salt Lake City, Clyde then pursued the study of illustration back East with the famous Howard Pyle. Going on to drawing and painting classes at the New York School of Art with W.M. Chase, Robert Henri, Frank Dumond, F.F. Louis Mora, and Kenneth Hays Miller, Squires became a charter member of the Society of Illustrators and a frequent contributor of sentimental material to such publications as Life, American Magazine, Argosy, Collier's, Delineator, Harper's Judge, and The Ladies Home Journal, and for a number of books published by Century Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and Doubleday and Company as well. Highly successful as an illustrator and painter of obvious subjects, Charles Clyde Squires remained in New York to exhibit his work internationally, found many buyers for his popularly known images, and created work entitled Her Gift that would be known through the 1950s as “record.....best seller in the US“.

Biography courtesy Artists of Utah.

Books

Dunbier, Roger, ed. North American Artists: The Artists Bluebook. Scottsdale, AZ: AskART.com, 2000.

Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999.

Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art: Compiled from the Original Thirty-four volumes of American Art Annual--Who's Who in Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.

Fielding, Mantle, and Glenn B. Opitz, eds. Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers. Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1986.

Mallett, Daniel Trowbridge. Index of Artists, International-Biographical; Including Painters, Sculptors, Illustrators, Engravers and Etchers of the Past and the Present. New York, NY: Peregrine Smith, 1948.

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. Artists of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999 .

Reinhardt, Lisa. Davenport's Art Reference & Price Guide 2001/2002. Phoenix, AZ: Gordon's Art Reference, 2000.

Samuels, Peggy, and Harold Samuels. The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, Donna Poulton, and Janie Rogers. 150 Years Survey of Utah Art, Utah Artists. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2001.

Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, and William C. Seifrit. Utah Painting and Sculpture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1991.