On this day, July 31, 1860, artist and naturalist Mary Vaux Walcott was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1925 the Smithsonian published some 400 of her illustrations of wild flowers and their description in a 5-volume book, North American Wild Flowers.
On this day, July 30, 2013, illustrator and op ed editorial illustrator Jean-Claude Suares died in Englewood, New Jersey. After emigrating to New York Suares attended Pratt Institute briefly before joining the Army. In Vietnam he did a stint on Stars and Stripes the Army newspaper. He worked for various publications and in 1970 was involved
On this day, July 29, 1971, painter, sculptor, and illustrator Federico Castellón died in New York City. Castellón emigrated with his family to the United States when he was a child. Largely self-taught, Castellón studied the art in New York’s museums. In the late 30s he began to create illustrations for work as Poe’s “The Masque of
On this day, August 3, 1945, illustrator and artist C. Warde Traver died in New York City. He studied at The University of Michigan, the Detroit School of Art, and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Traver created illustrations for a broad range of magazines from The Saturday Evening Post to Physical Culture and Love
On this day, July 28, 1918, pulp illustrator Chester Bloom was born in Regina, Canada. Bloom and his family moved to New York City in 1939. Even as he began created work for pulp magazines, Bloom studied at the Art Students League in New York. He served in the U. S. Army in WWII working
On this day, July 27, 1990, Ed (Edmund Alexander) Emshwiller died Valencia, California. Emsh studied at The University of Michigan, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and at the Art Students League of New York. He created cover illustrations and story illustrations for both science fiction and for the pulps. In the 1960s Emsh pursued an
On this day, July 26, 1978, Mary Blair (born Mary Robinson) died in Soquel, California. Blair studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Blair was an artist and animator for The Walt Disney Studio and created concept art for Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South, and Cinderella. After the completion of
On this day, July 25, 1918, abstract illustrator and illustrator Jane Schenthal Frank was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She trained at the Maryland Institute of Arts and Sciences (now MICA) in commercial art and in fashion illustration and at the School of Fine and Applied Art in New York (now Parsons School). In addition to her
On this day, July 24, 1959, comic book writer and artist Trevor Von Eeden was born in Georgetown, Guyana. When he was 16 Eeden began working for DC Comics. He was the creator of the company’s first African American superhero, Black Lightning. Eeden has also worked on Batman, Green Arrow, and Power Man and Iron Fist.
On this day, July 23, 2006, cartoonist Vernon Ethelbert Grant died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Grant studied for one year at the Vesper George School of Art in Boston and then join the U. S. Army. In Tokyo Grant was a regular cartoonist for Stars and Stripes and he developed a fascination with Japanese comics. In