On this day, September 18, 1947, illustrator Clifford Ashley died in Westport Point, Massachusetts. After studying at the Eric Pape Art School in Boston, Ashley studied with Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware. Ashley’s work primarily focused on images of ships and the sea. In 1944 he wrote and illustrated his famous The Ashley Book of Knots, an encyclopedic reference book on knots.

clifford ashley