Postage Stamps

In commemoration of the American Revolution and the birth of our great country, I offer postage stamps by or based on the work of Indiana illustrators and Hoosier cartoonists. You'll find Revolutionary War heroes, presidents, a yellow kid, a rickety trolley car, and many other images here. Happy Birthday, America!

"Herkimer at Oriskany 1777 by Yohn," a 13-cent commemorative issued for the bicentennial of the American Revolution. The illustration from the stamp is from a painting by Indiana illustrator Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933).

And a reproduction of the original, painted in about 1901. As a young artistic prodigy, Yohn painted pictures of historical scenes from the American and English Revolutions. His work was favorably compared to Howard Pyle's. According to Wikipedia, Yohn's original painting is at the Utica Public Library in Utica, New York.

George Rogers Clark at Vincennes, located in what is now Indiana, accepting the surrender of the British garrison in 1779. The event was a turning point of the war in the west, captured by Frederick C. Yohn in a painting for Youth's Companion in 1923 and adapted to a commemorative stamp in 1929, the sesquicentennial year of the surrender.

"Presidents of the United States," a sheet of commemoratives designed by Indiana illustrator Gene Jarvis (1921-1990) and Michael Halbert and issued by the Marshall Islands in 2005. 

A stamp design by Paul A. Wehr (1914-1973) for the sesquicentennial of Indiana statehood, 1966. In keeping with the patriotic theme, I can tell you that Wehr was born in Mount Vernon, Indiana. In another five years, Indiana will celebrate its bicentennial, and what a celebration it will be.

"American Illustrators," a sheet of stamps commemorating some of our greatest illustrators and issued in 2000. Although none of the stamps represents the work of a Hoosier, the decoration at the top is by Franklin Booth (1874-1948), an Indiana farmboy made good in the art world of New York.

"Comic Strip Classics" from 1995, the centennial year (or the year before the centennial year, depending on whom you ask) for newspaper comic strips in America (hence in the world--sorry, European theorists). I don't think the artwork is original, but I have never heard any comment on that possibility. In any case, Hoosier cartoonists represented on the sheet are three in number: First, Fontaine Fox (1884-1964), creator of Toonerville Folks. Although he was born in Louisville, Kentucky, Fox went to school at Indiana University and that's where a large collection of his art resides. Second, Harold Gray (1894-1968) and his Little Orphan Annie. Gray was born in Kankakee, Illinois, but grew up in Indiana and graduated from Purdue University with a degree in engineering. The title of his comic strip is from a poem by James Whitcomb Riley of Greenfield, Indiana. Third, Dale Messick (1906-2005), creator of Brenda Starr Reporter and native of South Bend. Dale was one of the first female cartoonists to find success in syndication. Her work is also on deposit at Indiana University. Other strips with an Indiana connection: The Yellow Kid, aka Hogan's Alley, drawn by George Luks after the creator of the strip, R.F. Outcault, had left--to draw another version of the strip. Assisting Luks on Hogan's Alley was Paul Plaschke (1880-1954), a German-born artist who lived in southern Indiana for many years. And another alley, Gasoline Alley, created by Frank King and carried on after King's death by Dick Moores (1909-1986), in his day one of the most widely admired of cartoonists.

The more recent "Sunday Funnies," with a column of stamps showing Garfield and Odie, creations of Jim Davis of Fairmount, Indiana.

Finally, detail from "The Art of Disney-Imagination" from  2008.  What's the Indiana connection? Bill Peet (1915-2002) of Grandview adapted the story for 101 Dalmatians from Dodie Smith's novel and helped develop the characters. Victor Haboush (1924-2009), who attended the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, was among the animators. Peet and fellow Hoosier Harry Reeves contributed to the story in Cinderella as well. And who else but Phil Harris (1904-1995) of Linton, Indiana, could provide the voice for Mowgli's beloved friend Baloo in The Jungle Book? 

Postscript: "Pioneers of American Industrial Design," a sheet of "Forever" stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service this year, 2011. Among the designers commemorated is Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960), a native of Pendleton, Indiana, who, before making his mark as an industrial designer, worked as an illustrator. That's his design for a camera, middle, far left.

Captions copyright 2011, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Detectives

"Sherlock Holmes Umpires Baseball," a spoof of the popular character, ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1906, illustrated either by Dok Hager (1858-1932) or his son, George Hager (1885-1945), both of whom were Hoosiers and both cartoonists.

Perhaps in answer to Sherlock Holmes, E.W. Hornung created Raffles, a "gentleman cracksman" who lived on the opposite side of the law. Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933) was the illustrator for Raffles' American editions. Hornung by the way was the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes' creator.

Turn-of-the-century humorist John Kendrick Bangs wrote comic versions of popular books and characters. A frequent collaborator was illustrator and cartoonist Albert Levering (1869-1929), who drew this picture for Mrs. Raffles (1905), Bangs' account of the adventures of Raffles' widow. Yohn drew the straight version, Levering the takeoff. Both were Hoosiers.

John McCutcheon (1870-1949) and George Ade (1866-1944) were friends and schoolmates at Purdue University. They spent much of their lives in Chicago, though, and collaborated often. Their book, Bang! Bang! (1928), recounted the investigations of boy detective J.P. Davenant, pictured here. From The Murder Book: An Illustrated History of the Detective Story (1971) by Tage la Cour and Harald Mogensen.

Astrogen Kerby, "Astro," was a different kind of detective, a palmist and fortuneteller who investigated crimes. He appeared in The Master of Mysteries by Gelett Burgess (1912), with pictures by Indiana illustrator George Brehm (1878-1966). From The Murder Book.

Finally, The Strange Case of Mason Brant by Neville Monroe Hopkins (1916) with illustrations by Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962).

Captions copyright 2010, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Paul Adam Wehr (1914-1973)

During the middle part of the twentieth century, one magazine and one artist dominated the look of illustration in popular magazines. The magazine was The Saturday Evening Post. The artist of course was Norman Rockwell. Countless journals had disappeared during the Great Depression and the lean years of World War II. Many others had turned to photography for their main source of illustration. The Saturday Evening Post marched ever onward, though, with art created not only by Norman Rockwell but also by a younger generation that included John Falter, Stevan Dohanos, Mead Schaeffer, and many other realists working at a time when realism was no longer the fashion in art.

Paul Adam Wehr was one of those realists. Tall, boyish, and mild mannered, Wehr was an extremely talented watercolorist and an accomplished illustrator and commercial artist. He was born on May 16, 1914, in Mount Vernon, Indiana. Encouraged by his father, Wehr entered the Herron School of Art at age nineteen and received his bachelor of fine arts in 1938. He began teaching at Herron in 1937, and in two stints at the school (1937-1946 and 1952-1954), he rose to head of the commercial art department.

After World War II, Wehr struck out on his own as a commercial artist with the Stevens-Gross Studio of Chicago. Working at home and sending his artwork by bus to Chicago, Wehr provided art to a variety of clients including Braniff Airlines, Coca-Cola, Ford, International Harvester, Libby, Parker Pens, Standard Oil, Swift, the U.S. Air Force, and he observed, "practically every brand of beer made."  Collier's, Coronet, Country Gentleman, Popular Mechanics, Redbook, Sports Afield, This Week, and True were among the many magazines for which he created crisp, idealized scenes of American life. It is this style, exemplified by the work of Norman Rockwell, that has given us our popular and nostalgic image of the 1940s and '50s. I'm not sure that Wehr's work ever made its way into The Saturday Evening Post, but he was certainly of that school.  Perhaps more than anyone, he deserves the title "the Norman Rockwell of Indiana."

Wehr's commercial art paid the bills, but he was also a fine artist, traveling extensively and working in watercolor and casein. His large painting, "The Molders," won him honorable mention at the Prix de Rome, held at the Grand Central Galleries in New York in 1936, while he was still a student. He won many more prizes and competitions during his near forty-year career. Paul Wehr's untimely death came on October 2, 1973, in Indianapolis. He was just fifty-nine years old.

Pictures like this were the bread and butter of magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Liberty,  and Coronet after World War II. Paul Wehr, with his sure hand and painstaking technique, fit right in with artists such as Norman Rockwell and Stevan Dohanos.

An example of Wehr's commercial art and proof that he could work just as well with a contemporary subject as with an image of the nostalgic past.

Wehr's commercial clients included the makers of every kind of product, including in his words, "practically every brand of beer made." Drewry's was brewed in South Bend, about as far as you can get from the artists's native Mount Vernon and still be in the Hoosier State.

Is it fine art or commercial art? The distinction isn't always clear. In any case, this painting by Paul Wehr, from an unknown date, revisits the subject of his prize-winning "Molders" from 1936.

Text and captions copyright 2010, 2024 Terence E. Hanley