Samuel S. Chamberlain

Etcher, lithographer, photographer, and author, Chamberlain first received his training as an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture from 1915-16 and 1919-20. From 1917-18, he served in the military during World War I. He was stationed in France during the War and fell in love with the country's beauty, its monuments, people, food, and culture. He traveled there frequently throughout his life and spent a great deal of time sketching in the French countryside and in cities and villages. Chamberlain was practically self-taught in the medium of etching but he later abandoned this form in favor of the drypoint because he believed that it afforded him more control and freedom of what he drew. He often made a preliminary pencil drawing of his subject and later prepared a finished drypoint of it in his studio.