Born in Detroit in 1910, Standish Backus graduated form Princeton University in 1933 with a degree in architecture. He studied painting the following year at the University of Munich, and later took instruction with a watercolorist in Maine
Born in Detroit in 1910, Standish Backus graduated form Princeton University in 1933 with a degree in architecture. He studied painting the following year at the University of Munich, and later took instruction with a watercolorist in Maine. After his return from Europe, he settled in Santa Barbara, California, and worked full-time as an artist, developing in the style of the California watercolorists who were receiving national acclaim in the 1930s.
After being commissioned as an Ensign in the inactive Naval Reserve in 1940, Backus became an active duty officer in 1941. During most of the war he was assigned to the Net and Boom Defenses, first in the South Pacific and then in 