Charles was an American artist best known for his influential paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been reproduced in many books and exhibited at major museums in the United States.

As a child, Knight was deeply interested in nature and animals, and spent many hours copying the illustrations from his father's natural history books. Though legally blind because of astigmatism and a subsequent injury to his right eye, Knight pursued his artistic talents with the help of specially-designed glasses, and at the age of twelve, he enrolled at the Metropolitan Art School to become a commercial artist. In 1890, he was hired by a church-decorating firm to design stained-glass win...