Louis Betts

To Centurions, the perfect monument to the skill, imagination, and technique of Louis Betts is at the north end of the East Room: of all our portraits, perhaps most admired by new members and guests and most loved by those who remember its subject, our late former president, Royal Cortissoz. Betts caught Royal in the genial mood so familiar to older Centurions—the mood in which he always addressed our meetings. If ever there was a “speaking” likeness, this is it.

The boldness of his painting contrasted oddly with his personal shyness. Only in the poolroom did he really seem at ease and at home: he had a passion for billiards, and he amused fellow-members by the sense of frustration the game gave him. He took a good many beatings there below and though he took them gracefully, applauding the best shots with sincere appreciation, it so irked him, privately, that he could not do better at his favorite sport that he went to a billiard “academy” and took lessons. Denizens of the poolroom say that he emerged from the course better but not good enough for the real Century experts.

Since 1915, a member of the National Academy of Design, Louis Betts won six of its awards. He also won the gold medal of the Allied Artists of America and the Norman Waite Harris prize of the Chicago Art Institute. His work has been shown in museums all over America, including the Corcoran and National Galleries of Washington. He was a former president of the Salmagundi Club and a vice-president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

In his more than forty years in the Century he was a regular exhibitor in our gallery. In the winter of 1953–54, he had a one-man show there, and, in 1958, he was awarded the Art Committee Medal for the best work in the Artist Members’ Autumn Show.

Roger Burlingame
1962 Century Association Yearbook