Francis Owen Salisbury CVO (18 December 1874 – 31 August 1962) was an English artist who specialised in portraits, large canvases of historical and ceremonial events, stained glass and book illustration.

Uncertain as to his ability to find and maintain a job, the family determined that he be apprenticed, at the age of 15,[1] to Henry James Salisbury, his eldest brother, who managed a major stained glass company in Alma Road, St Albans.

[1] He is buried in a rather unassuming grave, with his baby daughter Elaine Maude and his wife, in St Nicholas Churchyard, Harpenden.

[3] A providential meeting with Lord Wakefield, founder of Castrol Oils and a Methodist philanthropist, saw his introduction to society portraiture.

Twenty-five members of the Royal House of Windsor sat for Salisbury and he was the first artist to paint HM Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1919 he painted a mural for the Royal Exchange, London National Peace Thanksgiving Service on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, 6 July 1919.

He made thirteen visits, basing himself in Washington DC, Chicago and New York City where his portraiture would be a roll call of American wealth.

Industrial and financial giants who sat for him included Henry Clay Folger, Elbert Henry Gary, Edward Stephen Harkness, Will Keith Kellogg, Andrew William Mellon, John Pierpont Morgan, George Mortimer Pullman, John Davison Rockefeller Jr., and Myron C. Taylor.

Salisbury's great forte was in his painting of over forty large canvases of historical and national events, a field in which he was virtually unchallenged until 1951.

The two most significant of these are The Heart of Empire – the Jubilee Thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral 1935 and The Coronation of their Royal Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth 1937.

It was Salisbury who was required, by Royal Command, to paint two large images of The Burial of the Unknown Warrior for the first Remembrance Day.

During the Second World War he was required to paint The Signing of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty and one of his most endearing images is The Briefing of an Air Squadron.

They were commissioned by Joseph Leckie "to commemorate the never to be forgotten valour of the South Staffordshire Regiments in the Great War 1914 – 1918" and completed in 1920.

[8] The scene, after the wedding of the Duke of York in 1923, shows "The four Indian orderly officers of the King, who that year were Sikhs, passed the grave of the Unknown Warrior in the Abbey, and spontaneously paid tribute.

Many of his associates including Pierpont Morgan, Lord Wakefield, Will Kellogg and Andrew Mellon were both rich industrialists and Christian philanthropists.