William Carson Francis

William Carson Francis was born in Buffalo in 1879. His education includes Stanford University,  the Art Students’ League in Buffalo, and Columbia University School of Architecture . He also studied with Bolton Coit Brown in California. Specializing in architecture, design, decoration and murals, he decorated various private residences around Buffalo, along with the Roosevelt Branch of the Merchants and Traders’ Bank and the First Presbyterian Church. He taught interior decoration at the Buffalo School of Fine Arts from 1917-1925, and for the Buffalo Savings Bank’s (M&T Bank) 80^th anniversary, Francis along with Eugene Savage and George Davidson completed the well -known mural decorations in the bank’s dome in 1926. Four pendentives supporting the dome portray Buffalo’s strengths, and the large East Wall Mural features “The Founding of Buffalo” along with various other characteristics of the city. Francis also completed murals in Ossining, New York.