Sunday, January 19, 2014

Clare Angell in Picture Postcard Monthly Magazine

Ken Dickinson and I recently collaborated on an article on the artist Clare Angell for Picture Postcard Monthly magazine. The article was published in the November 2013 issue and showcases some of Angell's art in full color. All the images are from Ken's collection. Picture Postcard Monthly is a British magazine. Their website is:


Clare Angell had only a tenuous connection to Indiana. In her book, Art and Artists of Indiana (1921), Mary Q. Burnet listed Angell as having been born in Goshen, Indiana. Public records tell a different story. If those records are accurate, then Angell was born on March 4, 1874, in Lansing, Michigan. His father, Eugene Angell (1848-1907) was also a native of Michigan. Clare Angell's mother, Mary Butterfield Angell (ca. 1853-?), was born in Indiana, probably in Goshen. In 1880 she was with her husband in Lansing. Eugene Angell, a banker and investor, became insolvent in 1883. Presumably he and his wife separated after that. The records of the 1890 census have of course been lost. They may very well have showed Clare Angell with his mother in Goshen, where she was enumerated in the 1900 census with her family. By then Clare Angell was on his own as an artist and probably living in New York City.

Clare Angell worked as a postcard artist and illustrator for about thirty years. Unfortunately, there aren't any records of him after the 1920s. If anyone knows anything more on Clare Eugene Angell, Ken Dickinson and I would very much like to hear from you.

The First World War began one hundred years ago this year. This postcard by Clare Angell will not be the last image you see in 2014 from that long-ago conflict.

Text and captions copyright 2014 Terence E. Hanley
All images are from the collection of Ken Dickinson.

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