For over a year I've been writing biographies of artists with
names, if not styles, that were probably familiar to many of you.
I decided that perhaps a short side trip would be in order about
now - a look at some of those artists who never made the history
books or, if they did, probably didn't get the coverage of their
better-known compatriots. Here, then, are three artists that I
like. I don't have much to offer in the way of biographical data,
but I hope the images will convey my intended message: there are
lots of great artists out there that deserve your attention. We'll
look at others from time to time.
Katherine Sturges Dodge
illustrated seven or eight books for P.F. Volland from 1913 to
1921. My favorite is Short Stories of Musical Melodies
from 1915. It's a slim, heavily illustrated volume, as are most
of the Volland publications, and it contains some of the most
exquisite pen and ink work I've seen, with a skillful use of a
second color to add highlights, depth and volume. She reminds
me quite favorably of Franklin
Booth, John R. Neill, William Stout, and others. The first
copy I had for sale in my bookselling days was sold to Hilary
Knight, the illustrator of the famous Eloise books, who
informed me that he wanted the book because Dodge was his mother.
Her
other work that I've seen is more pastel and watercolor oriented
and lacks the classic simplicity of the line work shown above
right. The image at left is from Winkle, Twinkle and Lollypop
from 1918. Those are the only two books by her that I own. If
there are more samples of her pen & ink style available, I
hope someone with let me know. (Also Little Pictures of Japan
in 1925 as Katharine [sic] Sturges) But sometimes there is just
the one book - the one you just have to have! That
would be Short Stories of Musical Melodies!
 Issue #4 has two pages devoted to Katherine Sturges Dodge. |
and she's in issues #2 and 4. |
Issue two features Walter H. Everett artwork -
these two images and others in high resolution color.
Issue three has three other illustrations from The
House of Rimmon
Walter H. Everett was born in 1880 and was a student at the Drexel Institute while Pyle was teaching classes in illustration there. Everett was an apt student and was published in the prominent magazines of the day by the time he was 23 - including covers for Scribners and The Saturday Evening Post.
At left
is the frontispiece for The House of Rimmon, a short play
from 1908 by Henry Van Dyke. At right is one of the six small
tipped-in plates from And Thus He Came - A Christmas Fantasy
from 1916 by Cyrus Townsend Brady.
In a biography by Ben and Jane Eisenstat (who just happened to be my neighbors here in Palo Alto) in the January 1988 issue of Step-by-Step Graphics (vol.4:1) he's described as a man preoccupied with his work to the detriment of his family life. In a career that lasted into the 1930's he was a nebulous figure who often missed deadlines and seemed to move his residence frequently, perhaps, the Eisenstats speculate, due to his neglect in dealing with such mundane tasks as paying rent.
He was a popular illustrator and the article compares his best work to Brangwyn and Sorolla. The comparison is valid and I love his approach to light and textures. Check out that issue of Step-by-Step for some wonderful additional samples. He taught at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art until 1914 and had a studio in Wilmington, Delaware until 1927.
Not much of his original work has survived. His career ended
abruptly when he took his accumulated paintings and burned them.
He painted for himself until his death in 1946.
There's an awful lot I don't know, but usually I can dig up some information within my reference library. Well, I'm striking out with Walter Dean Goldbeck. I can't find a single reference to him, so you're going to get exactly what I do know. It's not much. Late breaking news: my friend Jeri Dansky has found an internet reference that I missed that gives him a life span of 1882-1925.
First,
here are a couple of samples of his color work. At left is the
frontispiece, one of the five color plates in The Shogun's
Daughter by Robert Ames Bennet from 1910. Below right is an
image from The Bear's Claw, from 1913. These, and most
of the other books of his that I've discovered, were published
in Chicago by either A.C. McClurg or Reilly & Britton between
1908 and 1913. These include: Rebellion (1911), A Little
Brother of the Rich (1908), and A Master's Degree (1913).
One
title, The Boomers by Roy Norton, was published in 1914
by W.J. Watt in New York. It's possible that I have more of his
work in the pages of the many magazines in the Vadeboncoeur
Collection of Knowledge, but I didn't make a list of those
appearances when I did my first major indexing run some decades
ago.
So, that's all I know. His colors are sumptuous and his lighting effects quite dynamic. It's possible that he was one of the many, many casualties of WWI. I really would like to see more of his work.
You know, over the years people have been "borrowing" my scans, usually without attribution, so I don't feel too bad about using this gorgeous piece from ArtFact. It's a Judge magazine cover, August 1, 1914, from the original art. Stunning!
Issue 5 has a page devoted to
Walter Dean Goldbeck
To learn more about these and other illustrators, see:| 200 Years of American Illustration | Henry C. Pitz, Random House 1977 |
| The Illustrator in America 1880-1980 | Walt and Roger Reed, 1984 Madison Square Press |
| American Illustration 1890-1925 | Judy Larson, 1986 Glenbow Museum |
| A Forgotten Master: Walter Everett | Ben & Jane Eisenstat, Step-By-Step vol 4: 1, Jan. 1988 |
| The Vadeboncoeur Collection of Knowledge | Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. 1998 |
| The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS 2, 4, 5, B&W 2, 4 | Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. 2001-2004, 2008, JVJ Publishing |
|
Illustrations are copyright by their
respective owners. This page written, designed & © 1998 by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Updated 2011. |
