BIO

William Linzee Prescott

  Born: 31 JUL 1917 - New York

  Marr: Evelyn Patterson

  Died: 24 APR 1981 - Florida

Father: William Brown Prescott

Mother: Margery Ficken 

Photo of William Linzee Prescott taken in 1919 inclusion in his mother's passport. He had accompanied his parents to Lima, Peru in 1919 where his father worked as a cotton buyer. The family apparently traveled to Peru on a single family passport. Later that year his mother Margery applied at the American consulate in Lima for a new passport for herself and her son only so they could return to the United States for a visit. The photo of William Linzee Prescott may have been taken in Peru.

Born in New York City, schooled at the prestigious Groton school in Massachusetts, Prescott had studied art at the Chouinard School in Los Angeles, then moved to Mexico to study fresco. After a tour of Africa, he held a successful exhibition in New York in 1940 before enlisting.
After leaving the Tuxedo Park home his family occupied with the family of actor Fred Gwynn, Prescott traveled around the world before settling in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where he painted as artist in residence at the Swimming Hall of Fame. His paintings are scattered around the world. In Tuxedo, two golf murals hang in The Junction restaurant and bar, and regulars say old-timers can identify the people. Paintings can also be found in the Duck Cedar Inn, in the Clubhouse in Tuxedo Park, in old friends' homes and at West Point.  If wars were documented by his paintbrush, they were also recorded in his genealogy, which dates back to the American Revolution.
Prescott was descended from the rebel Col. William Prescott, who told his troops, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes," at Bunker Hill.
"Linzee" came from redcoat Capt. John Linzee, who fought from his ship, the Falcon, on the Charles River. Despite the extent of warfare Prescott documented, by all accounts, he didn't seem to take himself or his paintings too seriously. St. Mary's-Tuxedo Episcopal Church had a mural in which the 12 disciples of Jesus stood, wearing long robes that fell to their feet. When an observer counted 25 feet on 12 men, Prescott conceded it was unintentional in a Fort Lauderdale News story. "I guess maybe I was a bit looped," he told the reporter. But the humor behind the man seems only to add to the veracity of his work.
Prescott returned to warfare, at the invitation of General William Westmoreland, in 1967 as a civilian artist in Vietnam were he spent about one year recording the places and activities of the American soldier in Vietnam. In a 1991 review of his work in American Heritage magazine, Vol.42, No.1, February/March 1991. authored by Morley Safer "Prescott's War" (pp.100-113) [the paintings of William Linzee Prescott, a "civilian adventurer" artist in 1967 Vietnam] Vietnam War correspondent Morley Safer argued that Prescott documented the war with an accuracy photographers should envy. He wrote: "For the truth of war is that, as tragic as the whole awful persona may be, it is also very funny."
Prescott, who prefered his middle name Linzee over his first name William, died in 1981 in Florida at the age of 63. His ashes were scattered in DeLeon Springs, Florida, Prescott, Arizona and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico