Charles Percy Parkhurst (January 23, 1913 – June 25, 2008) was an American museum curator best known for his work on the Roberts Commission, tracking down art looted during World War II.

[1] Following his graduation from Williams in 1935, Parkhurst spent the next two years building bridges and roads in Alaska before returning to Oberlin for an M.A., which he completed in 1938.

[3] At Princeton, Parkhurst heard lectures by scholars such as Erwin Panofsky, Charles Rufus Marey, George Rawley, and Albert M. Friend.

He had a fellowship with Paul J. Sachs, a Byzantine expert, at Dumbarton Oaks, but never a superb linguist, Parkhurst felt that he was unqualified for this position and left to become a research assistant at the National Gallery of Art along with his fellow student Craig Hugh Smyth.

Immediately after the War, Parkhurst was promoted to lieutenant and he served with around thirty others at the former national headquarters of the Nazi party in Munich.

Though Parkhurst was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by the French Government in 1948, he had been discharged from the Navy for signing the Wiesbaden Manifesto.