The signature "CHAS. O. GOLDEN" appears in drawn capitals at lower right on the cover of The Etude Music Magazine for February 1930, beneath a portrait captioned "Modeste Moussorgsky — The Tragedy of Musical Russia". The composer is shown half-length and frontal, heavy-bearded, gazing out past the viewer, set against violet onion domes at left and a field of swirling scarlet, orange and lilac forms that fill the upper register — abstracted rather than descriptive, closer to a stage lighting effect than to sky. The medium is transparent watercolour, handled wet and loose in the background and tightly in the head. An American painter named Charles O. Golden, recorded in auction catalogues as 1899–1976, worked in watercolour and produced Southwestern subjects and at least one wartime image, "This Shall Be Avenged". The identification with this signature is probable but not established. It rests on an exact match of name and middle initial, a working life that comfortably spans a 1930 commission, and a shared medium. No source connecting that painter to The Etude has been located, and the auction records are dealer-supplied and inconsistent in detail. No interior credit for the cover art has been identified. Nationality, dates and training are therefore recorded as unknown for the purposes of this entry, and the extent of the body of work is undetermined. The Record Institute records the signature and states the identification as an inference, not as a finding.
Nationality: ๊ืUndocumented