On this day, August 1, 1992, Bob Peak died in Scottsdale, Arizona. A commercial illustrator, Peak studied at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles after military service in Korea. In the 1960s Peak began creating posters for many famous movies and in 1984 the Postal Service hired him to design 30 stamps on
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, 1855, artist and illustrator James Edward Kelly was born in New York City. As an illustrator Kelly specialized in depicting people and events of American wars, especially the Civil War. After that war he turned his hand to making appropriate pulic monuments.
On this day, July 29, 1971, Eric (Bertil Erik Karl) Lundgren died in Waldoboro, Maine. Born in Sweden, he immigrated to the U. S. and settled in Chicago. After studying art, Lundgren worked as a commercial artist in Chicago. In the early 1930s he was a cover artist for pulp magazines then he shifted to working
On this day, July 28, 1972, artist and illustrator Fanny Young Cory died on Camano Island, Washington. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, at the age of 14 she went to art school in Helena, Montana and by 17 she was in New York at the Art Students League. Cory did cover and story illustrations for all the
On this day, July 27, 1906, caricaturist and commercial artist Sam Berman was born. Berman began working when in high school. He studied at Pratt in Brooklyn while he worked for the Newark Star Eagle. His caricatures were published in theater magazines and a variety of the popular magazines. During the war he contributed political cartoons
On this day, July 26, 1934, cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay died in Brooklyn, New York. As a young man McCay created popular comics strips including Little Nemo in Slumberland. Inspired by flip books, McCay realized that his cartoons could be transformed into moving pictures. Soon he incorporated this feature into his vaudeville act creating
On this day, July 25, 1932, illustrator Harriet Roosevelt Richards died at Southwest Harbor, Maine. After studies at Yale University and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, Richards studied with Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware even though she was already selling her illustrations. Richards had a special affinity for images of children and
On this day, July 24, 1907, illustrator Lee Brown Coye was born in Syracuse, New York. Mostly a self-taught artist, Coye produced black and white illustrations for pulp magazines and for horror fiction.
On this day, July 23, 1916, American illustrator Cyrus Cuneo died in London. Cuneo studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco and in Paris with Whistler. He worked for the London Illustrated News traveling the American West and creating images for the newspaper.