AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION - Key Persons
Charles Dana Gibson was interested in art as a boy while watching his father cut silhouettes; he was born into a wealthy New England family from Roxbury, then a suburb of Boston. An enterprising lad, he started cutting silhouettes himself at eight, and by the time he was twelve, he was selling them at exhibitions. At fourteen years of age, through family connections, Charles was apprenticed to sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the Cornish Colony friend of Maxfield Parrish. After nearly a year in the Saint-Gaudens studio, he determined that sculpture was not his main interest and he took up pen and ink. His parents, recognizing artistic talent, enrolled him in the Art Students League. In 1885, due to an unforeseen family financial hardship, he left school at just eighteen to start his career. After trying unsuccessfully to get a job, he happened on Life, a new magazine competing with already well-established competitors, Puck and Judge.
Howard Chandler Christy travelled a long road: from watching steamboats on the Muskingum River in Ohio, to painting presidents, generals, Hollywood stars and society's grand dames. Christy arrived in New York in 1890 to attend the Art Students League, where he studied with William Merritt Chase. At that time, the publishing industry was making great technological advances and Christy sensed that a new field was opening - providing illustrations for burgeoning new periodicals. Reproduction technologies had evolved to the point where the tedious and expensive engraving process was no longer the means for publishing an illustration. These new innovations inspired this needy young artist to choose illustration as his profession.
His first project was illustrating a manuscript for In Camphor, a book by Frank Crowninshield. After completion, other book commissions rolled in. It was this single book that established Christy as a professional illustrator.
Patriotically moved by the explosion of the Battleship 'Maine', Christy signed on to cover the Spanish-American War. Accompanying the Rough Riders under fire, he illustrated articles published by Scribner's, Harper's, Century, and Leslie's Weekly to the utter delight of readers back home. In the process of covering the war, Christy befriended Col. Theodore Roosevelt and gained an even broader interest in patriotic subjects. By the time he returned home in 1898, he was a celebrity; his fame and reputation were truly secured with 'The Soldier's Dream', published in Scribner's, for which he portrayed a beautiful girl who became known as 'The Christy Girl.' Like 'The Gibson Girl,' she was a prototype for the ideal American woman: high bred, aristocratic and dainty though not always silken-skirted; a woman with tremendous self respect." From this point forward, Christy painted beautiful women for McClure's and other popular magazines. As for book illustrations, he also authored some such as 'The Christy Girl' and 'The American Girl', and that grew his audience exponentially. These images combined to make his notion of a beautiful girl everyone's criteria thereafter. In 1908, he returned to the riverbanks of the Muskingum River and enlarged 'The Barracks,' his childhood home, by adding a studio. In spite of being so far from the mainstream, publishers beat their way to his door. By 1910, his commission rates had reached an astounding average of $1,000 per week.
In 1915, Christy returned to New York and continued on his career path with magazine commissions. As war once again appeared imminent, Christy rallied his talents to assist in the war effort by painting posters for government war bonds, the Red Cross, Navy, Marines, and civilian volunteer efforts. His most famous poster was a young woman dressed in a Navy uniform with the caption, "If I were a man, I would join the Navy", a classic today.
The 1920's were the times for illustrators to reap rewards. New directions, styles and music combined with a business boom to create a huge market for portrait artists. Everyone craved immortality on canvas. It was at this point that Christy turned from illustration to portraiture, painting many notables including: Benito Mussolini; Crown Prince Umberto of Italy; Captain Eddie Rickenbacker; U.S. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover, Polk, Van Buren and Garfield; humorist Will Rogers; aviator Amelia Earhart; General Douglas MacArthur; and Mr. and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. Exhibitions, commissions, trips to Europe and celebrity elbow-rubbings engaged him completely during the 1920's. In 1925, after his earlier successes with 'The American Girl' and 'The Christy Girl,' Christy was commissioned to create a sculpture, which he titled 'Miss America,' to be awarded Oscar-style to the winner of the first Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, NJ. Christy also served as the only judge for this inaugural competition.
In the 1930-31 period, he became extremely depressed as did so many others after the Great Crash of 1929. In 1934, Christy painted magnificent murals of female nudes at the Cafe des Artistes in New York, a restaurant on the ground floor of his studio building. This marked a new recognition of Christy. A new kind of commission developed for him to paint celebrities and allegorical works depicting historical events, and even posters to memorialize significant historical events. He was painting illustrations again, but of a wholly different sort. The 1940's witnessed Christy undertaking milestone pieces such as The Signing of the Constitution (his most famous mural, which hangs in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building), Signing the United Nations Charter and his portrayal of Thomas Edison in Dawn of a New Light. Howard Chandler Christy died peacefully at the age of 80 in 1952, in his beloved studio apartment at the Hotel des Artistes.
Harrison Fisher was born in Brooklyn, the son of Felix Xavier Fisher and grandson of Hugo Antoine Fisher, both artist immigrants from Bohemia. In 1886, the family left New York and moved to Alameda, California near San Francisco. Two years later Harrison's mother died. In 1893, Antoine Fisher's art was exhibited at the World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago, and he felt comfortable enough to open a studio on Battery Street in San Francisco. Felix Fisher had already started to teach his two sons to sketch and paint as soon as they arrived in California. He took them on camping trips up and down the Pacific coastline sketching the magnificent scenery.
Harrison had shown promise quite early having excelled at drawing from the age of six. Coupled with his father's training and natural talent, he enrolled at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, and as a teenager sold illustrations to local newspapers. The popular national magazine Judge was soon publishing Harrison's works. Those early commissions brought him to the attention of the San Francisco Call, and he was hired as a staff artist drawing society functions, sporting meets, and illustrating news items.
After a couple of years he joined the San Francisco Examiner, the largest newspaper in William Randolph Hearst's stable, and sketched news events exclusively. In 1897, Fisher was given a requested transfer to Hearst's New York American. Barely two weeks later he got a joined job as in-house cartoonist and illustrator for the fabulously famous Puck Magazine. His career was careening ahead with recognition from everyone who came into contact with his work. His name grew in reputation and he very much enjoyed the new found recognition from the Examiner and Puck.
Flagg was a favorite illustrator of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst and due to their relationship he gained numerous other commissions including humorous short story illustrations (which he enjoyed doing most), and rapid portrait studies of Hearst's friends. Most of his sitters were generally upper-class society scions and celebrities including: actor John Barrymore and his sister Ethel, cartoonist Ham Fisher, unique humorist Rube Goldberg, and illustrator Charles Dana Gibson.
Dean Cornwell was a brilliant left-handed painter and muralist who dominated the illustration field for many years.
Dean Cornwell began his professional art career at age 18 as a cartoonist for the Louisville Herald. A year later, he enrolled at the Chicago Art Institute and went to work in the art department of the Chicago Tribune. At the Chicago Art Institute, he met and studied under prominent art educator Harvey Dunn. In 1915 Dean Cornwell followed Dunn to New York and joined him in his studio-classroom. After studying with Dunn Cornwell quickly became a success, although he eventually developed his own bold, light-drenched style.
He married artist Mildred Montrose Kirkham in Chicago in 1918, but his constant extramarital affairs caused the couple to separate after just a few years of marriage. They had two children but never divorced.
Dean Cornwell always had a strong work ethic and often worked seventeen-hour days, seven days a week. He produced over 1,000 illustrations for nearly every major publication in the country including Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping magazines.
In 1926 he signed a long-term contract with Cosmopolitan for the unheard-of annual salary at the time of $100,000, about $1,350,000 today.
He illustrated the work of authors including Pearl S. Buck, Lloyd Douglas, Edna Ferber, Ernest Hemingway, W. Somerset Maugham, and Owen Wister. He did advertising illustrations for hundreds of companies including GM, Eastern Airlines, Pennsylvania Railroad, Paul Jones Whiskey, Aunt Jemima, Seagram's Gin, Woodbury Soap, Palmolive, Coca-Cola, Goodyear, New York Life and Squibb. During the first World War he produced posters promoting the war effort.
He was a major presence in American illustration during the first half of the 20 th century. Due to his popularity he was nicknamed the "Dean of Illustrators."
In 1927 he decided to devote the rest of his life to mural painting and traveled to England to study mural painting for three years under famous muralist and autodidact Frank Brangwyn. Brangwyn selected Cornwell to assist him in a series of murals, including one at the House of Lords. Cornwell claimed that he rarely made much money from his murals and he continued his illustration work whenever he needed money.
Dean Cornwell's murals include his well-known work at the Los Angeles Public Library that was four-forty-feet-wide by forty-foot-high, took five years to complete and told the history of California. Also in California is his mural at the Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands. Cornwell painted murals in New York City at the Eastern Airlines Building (now 10 Rockefeller Plaza), the Raleigh Room at the Hotel Warwick, and the General Motors mural at the 1939 World's Fair. He also painted murals at the New England Telephone (now Verizon) headquarters building in Boston, the Davidson County Courthouse and Sevier State Office Building in Tennessee, and the Centre William Rappard in Geneva, Switzerland. During the depression he painted Federal Art Project murals in post offices in Chapel Hill and Morganton, North Carolina.
Dean Cornwell taught and lectured at the Art Students League in New York City and served as president of the Society of Illustrators from 1922 to 1926. He received gold medals for mural painting from the Architectural League of New York, as well as gold medals from the Allied Artists of America and the Society of Illustrators. Cornwell's 1928 Washing the Savior's Feet, originally painted for Good Housekeeping, was accepted for display by Britain's prestigious Royal Academy, one of the few American artists to receive this honor. In 1934 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician and became a full Academician in 1940. He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1953 to 1957. In 1959 he was inducted into the Society of Illustrator's Hall of Fame.
Spencer Douglass Crockwell was born into a comfortable middle class household on April 29, 1904 in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles Roland Crockwell, was a mining engineer; his mother, Cora, was the daughter of an Iowa attorney. He became a commercial artist and experimental filmmaker who spent a good part of his career creating illustrations and advertisements for the Saturday Evening Post.
In 1907 the Crockwell family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he graduated from high school and then attended from Washington University. Initially he studied engineering, but soon switched to business. While still an undergraduate, Crockwell took courses at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and quickly realized that he wanted to be an artist. After graduating from Washington University in 1926, Crockwell continued to study at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts until 1929. The following year he relocated to Chicago and continued his studies at the American Academy of Art. In 1930 and 1931 he studied in Europe on a Traveling Fellowship.
In 1932 Douglass Crockwell moved to Glens Falls, New York, which was to be his home for the remainder of his life. The following year he married Margaret Braman. They had three children, a son Douglass and two daughters, Johanna and Margaret.
During the depression he created murals and posters for the Works Progress Administration including Post Office murals in White River junction, Vermont; Endicott, New York; and Macon, Mississippi. In 1934 he painted Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co. (the leading Glens Falls, New York company) for the WPA.
In the 1930s Crockwell developed an interest in experimental animated films that occupied him for the rest of his life. In 1936 and 1937, he collaborated with David Smith, a sculptor, to create surrealist films. Because of his interest in experimental films, his output of paintings was limited to just twenty to forty illustrations a year during this time.
Crockwell painted his first of many Saturday Evening Post cover in 1933. He also worked for Life, Look, and Esquire, and numerous national advertisers including Friskies dog food, Welch's Grape Juice, Republic Steel, Brown & Bigelow calendars, Avondale Mills, and General Electric.
During World War II Crockwell created posters for United Service Organizations (USO), the Army, the Marines, the Nurse Corp. and an award winning poster for the American Relief for Holland. He went on to create poster art for the MGM movie The Yearling in 1946.
Harrison Cady is best known for his collaboration with writer Thornton W. Burgess, producing dozens of books and hundreds of comics featuring both fantastic and realistic animal illustrations. In 1910, they published their first book, Old Mother West Wind, in which Cady illustrated "the adventures of the animals in the Green Forest." Their partnership would continue for five decades, with Cady's animated illustrations of the very popular animal characters, including Peter Rabbit, Jimmy Skunk, Chippy Chipmunk, Reddy Fox and many others. During this time Harrison Cady also authored and illustrated several books, including his Butternut Hill series, Johnny Funny-Bunny's Picnic Party and Spring Moving Day.
He was a regular Rockport, Massachusetts summer visitor. In 1920, he bought Rockport's "The Headlands" harbor-front estate and made this his permanent home. Not far away he built a round studio known as "The Silo" and began to devote more time to etchings and oil paintings of landscapes and marine subjects, longing to be what he described as a "regular" artist.
In 1921, Cady was one of the founders of the Rockport Art Association. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design, held membership with the American Society of Etchers and with the American Watercolor Society, and participated in the New York World's Fair in 1938.