BLASHFIELD, EDWIN HOWLAND American artist, was born Dec. 15, 1848 in New York city. He was a pupil of Bonnat in Paris, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative work, marked by rare delicacy and beauty of colouring. He painted mural decorations for a dome in the manufacturers' building at the Chicago exposition of 1893; for the dome of the Congressional library, Washington; for the capitols at St. Paul (Minn.), and Madison (Wis.) ; for the Baltimore court-house; in New York city for the Appellate court-house; the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel; the Lawyers' club; and the residences of W. K. Vanderbilt and Collis P. Huntington; and in Philadelphia for the residence of George W. Drexel; and for the chancel of St. Saviour's. With his wife he wrote Italian Cities (i9oo), edited Vasari's Lives of the Painters (1896), published Mural Painting in America 0913), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the society of mural painters, and of the society of American artists, and in 1915-16 was president of the national institute of arts and letters. He also served as vice-president of the American federation of arts, and president of the national academy of design. For his mural work in the court-house at Youngstown (O.) and in the State capitol of South Dakota, he received (191i) the gold medal of the archi tectural league.