Edward C. Kuhn
Master Gunner and Master Sergeant Edward C. Kuhn (March 29, 1872 – September 4, 1948) was an official U.S. Army artist who designed the first authorized coats of arms and distinctive unit insignia for the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps, Engineer Corps, Cavalry, Infantry, National Guard and other branches. An expert on flags, heraldry, embroidery, and military antiquities, Kuhn made significant contributions to American military history. A number of Kuhn's paintings are included in the permanent collections of the White House, U.S. Naval Academy Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
Eduart Wilhelm Christian Kuhn was born March 29, 1872 in Martinsville, Niagara County, New York. Martinsville sits on 500 acres (2.0 km2) of land on the Tonawanda Creek, near the Erie Canal in North Tonawanda a suburb of Buffalo, New York. The oldest of eleven children, Kuhn labored in the local sawmill as a young man, but dreamed of becoming a professional painter. He would rush home from work, change clothes, eat dinner, and race to the train station to make the fourteen mile (21 km) trip to Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery where he attended art school, circa 1900.
Kuhn enlisted in the New York State Volunteers to fight in the Spanish American War. He later joined the regular infantry, and eventually transferred to the Coast Artillery Corps in 1902. A sergeant in the Fifty-second Company, Kuhn graduated from the School for Master Gunners in 1905. Kuhn frequently relocated and would seek out the local art school or leading commercial artists wherever he went. He studied under George de Forest Brush while stationed near New York City, Eric Pape, a well-known Boston illustrator, and he continued to develop as a painter while stationed in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Japan, and the Philippines. On October 6, 1909 Kuhn married Julia S. Krull at St. Paul Lutheran Church.
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