Marshall Bouldin, a nationally acclaimed portrait artist from Clarksdale, Mississippi, received his formal art training as a scholarship student at the Art Institute of Chicago.  He then worked as a successful illustrator in New York before finding his true calling in portraiture.  In a career spanning over four decades, Bouldin has created more than 800 portraits.  He has painted likenesses of governors, senators, representatives, military leaders, businessmen, private citizens, and one of his personal favorites, a study of Julie and Tricia Nixon. 

Mr. Bouldin took part in a historic exhibition with an alliance of 10 of the nation's foremost portrait artists when The Council of Leading American Portrait Painters exhibited their collective works in New York in 1996.  This was the first time in more than 80 years that an alliance of this magnitude publicly and collectively has shown its work.  Mr. Bouldin's artwork has been cited for excellence many times.  He was the first inductee of the National Portrait Artist Hall of Fame.  For years, he was the only American artist selected for exhibition with the Royal Society of Portrait Artists in London.  Mr. Bouldin has more portraits hanging in the U.S. Capitol then any living artist.  His works have hung in the White House and in more than 400 public and private collections throughout the United States.  They include the faces of Mississippi history; businessman Warren Hood, governor William Winter, statesman Aaron Henry, Arthur Guyton, M.D., William Faulkner and the state’s people…children, farm hands, hunters, and farmers.  The New York Times dubbed him "the South's foremost portrait painter," and the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote simply, "He paints great!"