custody battles. His second marriage was to Nancy Mae (née Coone) Palmer, a widow who had modeled for him for over eight years prior to their marriage. In the early 1930s, he met Elise Ford who became his model for the murals on Café des Artistes wall. Elise Ford was also Christy's model for the 1941 I Am An American poster personifying America "rushing forward to give the touch of the contagion of liberty and democracy to the rest of the world" in the words of then New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. Forty years his junior, she became Christy's companion until his death at age 80. They had a daughter named Holly (Holly Christina Longuski née Holly Ford) born in 1939 while he was painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States. Christy was the cousin of actor Chick Chandler. Legacy Attorney and author James Philip Head wrote a novelistic biography of Christy, The Magic of Youth, published in 2016. It is the first book in a projected trilogy titled An Affair with Beauty - The Mystique of Howard Chandler Christy. Romantic Illusions, the second installment in the trilogy, was released in March 2019. Helen Frances Copley (1935–2021) documented her research into the life of Christy in her 1999 book "The Christy Quest". Copley's viewing of Christy's painting of Christ "The Coming Peace and Prince of Peace" led her to ten years of research to better understand the man behind the unusual portrayal of Jesus. In 2017, Copley donated her substantial collection of items related to Christy's career as a book and magazine illustrator and the Christy Girl to Laffayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Gallery Selected publications Christy, Howard Chandler. The American Girl. New York: Moffat, Yard and Co, 1906. Christy, Howard Chandler, and E. Stetson Crawford. The Christy Girl. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1906. References Further reading Copley, Helen F. The Christy Quest. Tucson, Ariz: Patrice Press, 1999. Head, James Philip, An Affair with Beauty—The Mystique of Howard Chandler Christy: The Magic of Youth. Minneapolis, MN: North Loop Books, 2016. Head, James Philip, An Affair with Beauty—The Mystique of Howard Chandler Christy: Romantic Illusions. Minneapolis, MN: North Loop Books, 2019. Schneider, Norris Franz. Howard Chandler Christy. Zanesville, Ohio: Schneider, 1975. External links (as illustrator) Howard Chandler Christy posters at University of North Texas Libraries Digital Collections Howard Chandler Christy at American Art Archives