Indiana Illustrators in Puck and Life

More than a couple of Indiana illustrators did work for Puck, Judge, and the old Life humor magazines. Two of the earliest and most well known were Albert Levering (1869-1929) of Hope, Indiana, and Walter H. Gallaway (1870-1911) of Pendleton and Indianapolis. Following is some of their art.

Life, Auto Number, January 19, 1905, with cover art by Albert Levering. In addition to being an illustrator, Levering was a cartoonist. His training as an architect showed through in his precision and complete confidence in depicting buildings and machinery.

Levering may not have been right on the timing or appearance of the vehicles shown here, but he foresaw that horses would one day become pets rather than beasts of burden. Note the lap-horse held by the woman on the right. It probably won't be long before miniature horses are called "therapy animals" or "service animals" and that you'll find them sitting next to you on the plane.

Levering's cartoon portrait of Mark Twain, here used as the cover of a color insert in Life, July 13, 1905, became one of his more well-known works.

In the early 1900s, caricaturists often depicted well-known men as having big heads and little bodies. Here, with William Howard Taft, Levering did the opposite. The result is funny, though not very flattering to our heaviest of presidents.

You don't have to know who William Waldorf Astor was to gain some insight into his personality and character by way of Albert Levering's very devastating caricature from Life, 1905. 

One hundred years ago this season, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was in a bit of a pickle. His country was losing its war and he was only a few months away from abdicating his throne and fleeing to Holland. In 1905, Albert Levering caricatured him for Life, and though this portrait isn't as devastating as the one above of Astor, the artist nevertheless had his fun. Note "der Kaiser's" own self-portrait and book of poems. Note also the little cannon, which became a very big howitzer--Big Bertha--just a few years after this drawing was made. The Kaiser is just another example of how personal and psychological failings on a very individual level can have outsized effects on history and the rest of humanity. We are today still paying the price for those kinds of failings, one hundred years after the end of the Great War. 

Albert Levering was most active during the Progressive Era when trusts were seen as a great enemy and trust-busting was a favorite activity among politicians. Trusts, here disguised as corpulent girls (they're probably supposed to be caricatures of a real-life person but I don't know who that might have been) dance around a man (is he supposed to represent the public?) in a drawing captioned "A Maypolitical Party" (a somewhat clumsy pun on "Maypole Party"). The month for this issue of Puck is obvious, but I can't read the year. Sorry for the poor image. What we need, I think, is a complete and easily accessible, searchable, portable, and necessarily digital version of Puck for all to see.

Walt Gallaway did at least two covers for Puck, this one from June 26, 1901 . . .

And this one, from September 13, 1903. Note the very Hoosier-looking men with big bellies, big, unkempt beards, slouch hats, big boots, and baggy pants.

Text copyright 2018, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982)

Today's entry is eccentric. In its spinning and turning, it will catch a renowned artist, poet, and critic; a pop singer who cast herself as a witch; an actress who played a princess; two worldwide pop-cultural phenomena; a song about dreams; and the dreams themselves of countless young people--dreams of quest and conflict and a chance at becoming a hero in a battle that never ends. Among those who dream and who have dreamed were four boys who, on a day forty years ago, sat in a darkened theater in Indianapolis, eagerly awaiting the start of a movie that would prove unlike any before it, even if it was drawn from tales as old as storytelling. My older brother had seen the movie before. My younger brother, his friend Tom, and I had not, but we were excited in a way that only children can be excited to see a movie about which we had heard so much. Not long before that day at the Eastwood--a theater now laid low by the passage of time--the movie had opened across the country and had almost instantly become a sensation beyond any moviegoing experience before it. Nothing before and nothing after--not even Jaws from two summers before--would match what it became in the year and more following its release. It has since grown into a franchise, moreover, a worldwide phenomenon. The movie was of course Star Wars. It came out forty years ago today, on May 25, 1977.*

Strange details stick in your head. I remember that as we waited to see Star Wars, a song played in the theater. (Those were the days before commercials were shown before the movie begins.) The song was "Dreams," by Fleetwood Mac, from the album Rumours. I didn't know it at the time, but Rumours was released on February 4, 1977, not long before Star Wars came out. It was a sensation, too, and became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. "Dreams" reached number one on the pop-music charts on June 18, 1977, probably around the time the four of us went to see Star Wars. (Our seeing it was an early birthday present from my parents to my younger brother.) Another thing I probably didn't know at the time: "Dreams" was sung by Stevie Nicks.

Now comes the strange part--strange, then somewhat plausible, at least in my view. The heroine of Star Wars was of course Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, who was only nineteen years old when filming began on Star Wars in March 1976--nineteen and completely convincing not only as a princess but also as an outer-space senator. Although she had been in movies before, Carrie Fisher became a household name with Star Wars. Millions mourned her death this past year. She was loved as few people in popular culture are truly loved. Stevie Nicks is also loved that way, by millions the world over. She who sang "Dreams" for us has, strangely enough, been named as a possible replacement for Carrie Fisher. This isn't just some lone fanboy's dream: it's actually a thing on the Internet. As soon as I heard about it, I thought That might actually work. Whereas some people seem to be saying that Stevie Nicks should just be a stand-in or a body double for Carrie Fisher, I think she could actually be Princess Leia. No one I can think of could fill the role, but Stevie is loved like Carrie was loved, and she has a similar stature, not just physically but also in pop-cultural terms. The pop culture of the 1970s is falling into pieces with age as all things do--sadly, neither Linda Ronstadt nor Steve Perry can sing anymore--but if you want to hold it up for at least a little longer, I say Why not? If she can act and if the deal can be swung, why shouldn't we have someone new in Stevie Nicks to play the forty-year-old part of Princess Leia? I realize that it's only a fantasy--a dream--to think that way, but what else is all of this but a dream and a fantasy?

So what does any of this have to do with Indiana and its artists? Well, as any Star Wars fan ought to know, Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012), the conceptual artist behind the film and the franchise, was born in Gary, Indiana. He worked with director and screenwriter George Lucas as early as the spring of 1975, two years before the movie was released. He would go on to work on other films in the series. I would like to go beyond Ralph McQuarrie, though, and write about another Indiana artist who had nothing (or almost nothing) to do with Star Wars but by the turns of an eccentric idea can be caught in a discussion of the movie and its related phenomena.

A painting by Indiana illustrator Ralph McQuarrie for The Empire Strikes Back (1980). 

Kenneth Rexroth was born on December 22, 1905, in South Bend, Indiana. A home-schooled prodigy, then a teenaged orphan, he moved to Chicago to live with his aunt around 1919 or so. Although he is now known as a poet and critic, Rexroth studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in his youth. I would be surprised to find that any of his artwork survives. On the other hand, maybe there are drawings by Kenneth Rexroth hiding among his papers, wherever they might be housed.

Rexroth had a varied career as a traveler, friend, husband, lover, critic, essayist, poet, author, translator, activist, and associate of many famous people, including Beat Poets and other literary figures in San Francisco. You can read about him on the Internet and in those ancient artifacts known as "books." I'll note only that Kenneth Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982, at age seventy-six.

"Dorothy," a portrait by Andrée Dutcher (1902-1940), first wife of Kenneth Rexroth. 

Now comes a part about which I'm not sure, followed by some thoughts that I hope will stand on their own, even if I'm wrong about this connection to Kenneth Rexroth. And here is that connection, if it really is a connection: a long time ago, I read that there are only two kinds of stories, namely, the Iliad and the Odyssey. I think the quote was attributed to Kenneth Rexroth, but I can't be sure. As happens too often, when you lose a quote, it's hard to find again, even in this age of the Internet. But I have kept that thought in my head and have applied it to the analysis of books and movies over the years. It seems to hold up pretty well. Boiled down even further, the idea is that every story is either of a conflict--the Iliad--or of a quest or journey--the Odyssey. I would like to look into that idea in relation to two high-powered, pop-cultural franchises.

The cover of Poetry Readings in the Cellar (Fantasy, 1958), a spoken-word record with Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I wrote that there is no connection between Rexroth and Star Wars. Well, that's if you stop too soon. If you don't stop too soon, you'll learn that Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919) was friends with Erik Bauersfeld (1922-2016), voice of Admiral Ackbar and Bib Fortuna in the Star Wars movies.

Before Star Wars, there was Star Trek. Since the former came out in 1977, the two have lived side by side. One is fantasy. It appeals or is meant to appeal especially to children. The other is science fiction, though not always of the highest order. It appeals to children but also to adults, as the best entertainment of the 1960s and '70s did. I'm sure there is some overlap in the fandom associated with each, but the stereotype is that there are just two kinds of people: Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans. I'm not sure what these fans think of each other. If you fall back on stereotypes, you might say that Star Wars fans think that Star Trek is boring and that Star Trek fans think Star Wars is childish and one-dimensional. But those are stereotypes. Anyway, consider their titles: Star Wars. Star Trek. Take away the word Star and you're left with what? Wars--a conflict, the story told in the Iliad. Trek--a quest or journey, the story told in the Odyssey. There are wars in Star Trek and quests in Star Wars, but each is essentially of its own type. (With that in mind, might Princess Leia be Helen of Troy and the Millennium Falcon the Trojan Horse?)

So just by their titles, these two franchises bear out the idea I have attributed here to Kenneth Rexroth. If there are only two kinds of stories, each must cover a lot of ground. The possibilities for storytelling would seem vast. However, there are limits in each. War eventually ceases. The journey finally reaches its end. Wars and journeys without end can only mean misery and despair. So what does that mean for a pop-cultural franchise? I saw part of the results in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). The moviemakers seem to have been recreating Star Wars for a new generation. That's fine. Star Wars is after all a story for children. Why shouldn't children now have the same chance we had--we four and millions more like us--in 1977 for an exciting fantasy of rushing from one star system to another towards a climactic battle against an evil empire?

But there's a crack in the Star Wars story. I say it as a fan, but there's a crack, for in Star Wars, there must always be an Empire and there must always be a Rebellion. The Star Wars universe is vast and the possibilities for storytelling are theoretically endless, but the main action in every movie is the same: Imperial forces against Rebels, Sith against Jedi, the Dark Side against the Force. Without that conflict, Star Wars may well amount to nothing. So the war goes on, movie after movie, decade after decade, all with variations on a simple theme: the Empire or its equivalent always builds a big, impenetrable fortress and the Rebels or their equivalents always penetrate it and destroy it, often with what is seemingly the most powerful weapon in the universe, the X-wing fighter. Maybe Star Wars: The Force Awakens recapitulated the original trilogy not so much for a new generation of moviegoers but because it's the only story that can be told in the Star Wars universe. And maybe Darth Vader returned in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) because of a further limitation: maybe only he makes a truly compelling villain and a suitable embodiment of the spirit of the Empire. One thing is for sure: he beats the heck out of his weak little tantrum-throwing emo grandson.

In Star Trek, on the other hand, there are always new horizons of outer space where no man has gone before. Storytelling in the Star Trek universe is far less limited than in the Star Wars universe if only because it isn't framed and delineated by war, which has, significantly, a classic narrative structure. There is always a Federation and the starships of the Federation, but beyond that, only the writer's imagination places bounds upon what stories might be told. Star Trek, as Kenneth Rexroth wrote of the Odyssey, "is a collection of adventures, of little melodramas." There are limitations even here, though. One is that in the Star Trek universe, there isn't the classic narrative structure as in a story of war. The story just goes on and on, with all parts being equal to all other parts. There isn't any growth or development in the characters. They simply live out their lives in stasis, returned at the beginning of each episode to where they were at the beginning of the last episode, despite anything that might have happened in between. Captain Kirk might have great adventures, but he doesn't grow. Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, might grow (in addition to being a story of conflict, Star Wars can be considered a Bildungsroman), but he can never have peace in a universe that must always be at war.

So which limitation is worse? I can't say. A better way might be to look at possibilities rather than limitations. Star Wars and Star Trek have both told great stories. When they have not told great stories, it hasn't been because of the limitations of their respective types. And I would say that neither franchise has reached the bounds of possibility. There are still more stories to tell, and it's nice to think that forty years from now there will still be excited children waiting in the dark, waiting for the words Space: the final frontier . . . or A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .

_____

*Addition (Feb. 5, 2022): Incidentally, Stevie Nicks turned twenty-nine years old the day after Star Wars made its debut.

Copyright 2017, 2024 Terence E. Hanley
Happy 60th Wedding Anniversary to My Parents!

Ernie Pyle and G.I. Joe-Part Two

Today, November 11, 2015, is Veteran's Day, and on this occasion I would like to write a little more about Ernie Pyle and G.I. Joe.

I was in Irvington on October 31 for the annual Halloween Festival. For those not familiar with the history of Indianapolis and its neighborhoods, Irvington is on the east side of the city. Founded in 1870 and later annexed by Indianapolis, Irvington is characterized by winding avenues and historic houses. It was once a place for artists and writers. Kin Hubbard, creator of Abe Martin, lived there. So did painter and teacher William Forsyth. Many of the streets are named for artists and writers as well, including Audubon Avenue, Irving Avenue, Hawthorne Avenue, and Bolton Avenue, named for Hoosier poet Sarah Bolton. The first Irvington Halloween Festival took place on October 31, 1927. This year, in the sixty-eighth year of the festival, we walked among Batmen, Storm Troopers, Princess Leias, and other characters. We even found Waldo. Towards the end of our stay, we stopped in at Bookmamas, a small, independent bookstore on our old street. There I found a book I had never seen before, An Ernie Pyle Album: Indiana to Ie Shima by Lee G. Miller (1946). In that book is the following image:

Photo by the American Red Cross.

That's Ernie Pyle on the left and cartoonist Dave Breger on the right. Breger is showing the journalist a mural he created for a Red Cross club either in Northern Ireland or England. The caption doesn't make it clear where this photograph was taken (it was probably in Northern Ireland), but it would have been in the summer of 1942, about the time that Breger's G.I. Joe made its debut in Yank. Ernie Pyle flew to Ireland in June 1942 and spent about six weeks visiting with troops in the British Isles. In November 1942, he shipped out for North Africa to cover the Allied invasion.

In the first part of this article, from May 27, 2014 (here), I speculated about the origin of the title of the G.I. Joe comic book from the 1950s and the name of the Hasbro action figure from the 1960s. I think it more likely that the comic book and action figure were named after the Ernie Pyle biopic The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) than after Dave Breger's comic panel from 1942, but this photograph confirms that Pyle knew of the expression G.I. Joe almost from the beginning, if Breger was in fact its originator. Whether the title of the movie came from the title of Breger's cartoon creation is still an unanswered question.

Here are some other images of Ernie Pyle from the same book:

In London with a cartoon by David Low (1891-1963), a cartoonist born in New Zealand but thought of as a Britisher. Low inscribed the cartoon to Pyle. Photo by Ferenz Fedor.

Four sketches by combat artist Carol Johnson (ca. 1916-2003). Links to articles about Johnson: "Voices: Honoring Veterans Exhibit Opens Nov. 10" and "Carol Johnson’s WWII Illustrations on View at Art Center’s Hutto-Patterson Exhibition Hall" by Christine Spines.

A portrait drawing by combat artist George Biddle (1885-1973) from June 15, 1943.

Finally, a cartoon from Yank: The Army Weekly, from October 6, 1944, by Sergeant Al Melinger.

I saw The Story of G.I. Joe not long ago and kept my eyes peeled for a soldier with a flower stuck in his helmet strap. I didn't see him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. (I missed the first few minutes of the movie.) If the soldier had been in the movie, a link might be made between it and the comic book. In any case, the story of the expression G.I. Joe is a little fuller now with the first image shown above. 

Happy Veteran's Day to all. Let us honor all those who have fallen by devoting ourselves to the cause of human freedom for which they fought.

Text and captions copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

James Forbes (1797-1881)

Jonathan Jennings (1784-1834)

First governor of Indiana, painted by Scottish-American portraitist James Forbes (1797-1881).

The president of the first Indiana constitutional convention and the first governor of the State of Indiana was Jonathan Jennings (1784-1834), a man described as "gentle and kind" and one "of polished manners." (1) Jennings, staunch in his opposition to slavery, served two terms as governor and nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite all that, he died in poverty, and his body laid in an unmarked grave for fifty-seven years after his death. Jennings County, Indiana, the only Jennings County in America, is named in his honor. It is the birthplace of Jessamyn West (1902-1984) and her cousin, Hannah Milhous Nixon (1885-1967), mother of the president. Jessamyn West's book and the movie made from it, The Friendly Persuasion, are set in the county of her birth.

The official portrait of Jonathan Jennings was painted by James Forbes. In all, Forbes painted six official portraits of Indiana's governors, yet little is--or was--known of him or his career. That has changed a little in this Internet age. The website AskArt lists four artists named James Forbes. Three of those four may very well have been the same man discussed by art historian Wilbur D. Peat in Pioneer Painters of Indiana (1954) and Portraits and Painters of the Governors of Indiana, 1800-1978 (revised edition, 1978). Archivists and genealogists Sandy Stamm and Lynda Hawley of Plainwell, Michigan, have done as much as anyone in uncovering information about James Forbes. I would like to acknowledge and thank them for their work.

James Forbes (Wilbur Peat called him James G. Forbes) was born on October 1, 1797, in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to William Forbes and Mary (Walker) Forbes. James Forbes painted in Aberdeen and also taught painting there. John Phillip (1817-1867) was one of his students. "During the 1850s," wrote Wilbur Peat, "[Forbes] exhibited his work at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, and at the Royal Academy and the British Institute, London." (2) He immigrated to the United States in 1859 and by September of that year was in Chicago, where he "conducted an oil painting studio at Washington and Dearborn streets. He had some beautiful specimens of art in his collection." (3) In 1860, Forbes had a studio at 88 LaSalle Street. Wilbur Peat suggested that Forbes was gone from Chicago by 1868, but Lynda Hawley has found information that his studio and many of his paintings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

No one knows how James Forbes came to Indiana. Wilbur Peat speculated that Forbes' acquaintance with H.F. Blount of Evansville "induced him to seek commissions here." (4) According to Peat, Forbes spent several winters in Evansville, a city in the the far southern part of the state and one known for its comparatively mild winters. Evansville may very well have offered a haven to an artist from cold and windy Chicago.

Forbes painted a portrait of Evansville mayor John B. Baker in 1868 or 1869. "Through this commission," related Peat, "Forbes was introduced to Governor Conrad Baker, brother of the mayor, a meeting that resulted in his being asked to paint a number of the governors of Indiana for the Statehouse collection at Indianapolis." (5) The idea of commissioning and collecting portraits of the state's governors was conceived by Governor Baker, who asked that the legislature set aside $200 apiece for the canvases. Thus about ten portraits were completed in 1869-1870, including the six painted by James Forbes in his temporary quarters in Evansville and in Indianapolis. In addition to the portrait of Jonathan Jennings, Forbes created likenesses of governors Ratliff Boon, James Whitcomb, Paris Chipman Dunning, Oliver Perry Morton, and Conrad Baker himself. The first three are copies from other sources, the last three from life.

As for James Forbes' personal life, on May 15, 1824, he married Mary Waters (1797-1853) in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The couple had eight children, two boys and six girls. Two of the girls died in infancy. Forbes' oldest daughter, Mary Forbes Forbes (she married her cousin William Forbes) was a dressmaker and also a portraitist. Jane Forbes Gamack taught music, while the youngest Forbes girl, Elizabeth or Lizzie Forbes Forbes (she married her cousin John), taught art. Both Mary and Lizzie taught in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

According to archivist Sandy Stamm, the Forbeses and other Scottish families settled in the area of Plainwell, in Allegan County, Michigan, north of Kalamazoo. As evidence, a community called New Aberdeen still exists northwest of Plainwell. Ms. Stamm's associate, Lynda Hawley, writes that James Forbes bought a farm from his brother John Forbes. I assume it to have been in the Plainwell area. In the Federal census of 1880, Forbes was living with his daughter Mary and her husband (his nephew) William Forbes in the village of Plainwell. James Forbes died the following year, on March 25, 1881, in Plainwell. He was eighty-three years old. In the coming bicentennial of the first Indiana constitutional convention, I would like to remember the president of that convention, Jonathan Jennings, and the artist who painted his official portrait, James Forbes.

Notes

(1) Quoted in Portraits and Painters of the Governors of Indiana, 1800-1978 by Wilbur Peat, Diane Gail Lazarus, and Lana Ruegamer (Indiana Historical Society and Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1978), p. 16.

(2) Pioneer Painters of Indiana by Wilbur D. Peat (Indianapolis: Art Association of Indianapolis, 1954), p. 49.

(3) History of Cook County, Illinois, Vol. 1 (1909), p. 587.

(4) Pioneer Painters, p. 49.

(5) Ditto, p. 50.

Thanks to Sandy Stamm, Lynda Hawley, and Ransom District Library, Plainwell, Michigan, for further information on James Forbes.

Text copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Roy Anderson Ketcham (1894-1969)

Few artists are as accomplished in fine art as they are in cartooning and illustration. Roy Anderson Ketcham was one who was. Described as "a strapping big blond--a good cross between an Apollo and a college football center," (1) Ketcham studied in Indianapolis, Paris, and Provincetown, won two prizes for his paintings at the Hoosier Salon and other prizes in New York, exhibited among well-known Chicago artists, and taught at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He also drew a nationally syndicated comic strip and two comic panels.

Born on November 11, 1894, in Sandborn, Indiana, hardworking Roy Ketcham grew up in Indianapolis, where he attended Shortridge High School and delivered newspapers for the Indianapolis Star. His parents, Lewis (or Louis) M. and Sarah M. Anderson Ketcham, were not well off. If he was going to attend art school, Ketcham would have to earn his own tuition and expenses, so every morning he arose at two o'clock to deliver newspapers on a route just southeast of downtown. "Seems as if I had hundreds of customers," Ketcham recalled, "about three times as many as most of the carriers." (2) Covering his route by bicycle, Ketcham hurried to get his work done before school. By eight o'clock he was in class.

At the same time he was attending Shortridge High School, Ketcham was taking classes at the Herron School of Art under William Forsyth and Clifton Wheeler. He studied at Herron from 1910 to 1913. Among his classmates were Wayman Adams, Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett, Clotilde Embree Funk, Carl C. Graf, Marie Gray, William F. Heitman, Cobb Shinn, and the botanist J.E. Potzger. Another fellow student, Grace Spear, remembered Ketcham as "a popular, likeable [sic] boy. He also was a musician and attended music school along with his art classes. He was a busy lad, also working in his spare moments." (3)

Ketcham's last session at Herron came to an end in June 1913, presumably at about the same time he graduated from high school. A moment of decision seemed upon him, but his uncle came to the rescue by paying for further schooling. In August 1913, eighteen-year-old Roy Ketcham left Indianapolis for New York City, there to embark for France and studies at the Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921). Ketcham was in Paris when war broke out in August 1914. How he returned to the United States is a story known perhaps only to his surviving family members. In 1915 he won the Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney mural prize, presumably in New York. (4) He also won an award from the Art Students League in that city.

Roy Ketcham studied for a season with the portraitist and genre painter Charles Hawthorne (1872-1930) in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and won a prize for his work there. By then, however, exhaustion had set in and the artist began suffering from poor eyesight. Repairing to his father's farm in Loogootee, in Martin County, Indiana, Ketcham spent the next several years in seclusion, pitching hay, working a team of mules, and operating a corn cultivator. "My feeling for painting was gone," he remembered. "It was like being lost."

It wasn't long before Ketcham found himself again. His eyesight improved and he began painting again while on the the farm. Sometime in the early 1920s, he went to Chicago, got a job in a department store, enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and soon opened his own studio. The exhaustion and indecision had passed. "I've never been undecided since," Ketcham recalled in 1937. "It was just a matter of making up my mind, and that hard work on the farm helped do it." (5)

Roy Anderson Ketcham was known as a painter of portraits and still-life, but even a fine artist must eat. In the 1920s, Ketcham put food on the table by working as a cartoonist and illustrator for the Chicago Sun-Times and Junior Homes, The Something-to-Do-Magazine for Mothers and Children. (His work was printed in that magazine in 1927 and 1928.) In early 1927 (perhaps a little before), he began drawing the newspaper comic panel Poor Pa. Written by humorist and newspaper columnist Claude Callan (1881-1956), Poor Pa is a single-panel cartoon on the model of Abe Martin by Kin Hubbard. The art is uncredited and has been attributed to John H. Striebel. A newspaper article from April 1927 gives credit to Ketcham. (6) Very likely both men worked on the feature at various times. Poor Pa ran in syndication from 1926 to soon after Callan's death in 1956.

Roy Ketcham and John H. Striebel (1891-1962) may very well have had a working relationship, for Ketcham worked not only on Poor Pa but also on Aunt Het, a very similar single-panel cartoon in syndication from 1921 to 1967. Striebel, who also drew Dixie Dugan, was the credited artist from the inception of Aunt Het until his death in 1962. Ketcham took over then and drew the feature until it came to an end in early 1967. Aunt Het was written by newspaperman and humorist Robert Quillen from 1921 to his death in 1948, whereupon his widow, Marcelle Babb Quillen, took over the writing. It's worth noting that Roy Ketcham painted portraits of both Poor Pa and Aunt Het, both used in promoting the features. For the past thirty years, Quillen's hometown of Fountain Inn, South Carolina, has put on an Aunt Het fall festival. 

In 1931, Ketcham won the Indianapolis Star prize at the annual Hoosier Salon, held at the Marshall Fields and Company Galleries in Chicago. His entry was a portrait of a young boy, entitled "Bob." The artist repeated that win in 1937 with "The Long Grey Line," a portrait of Arthur Meier, Jr., a Chicago army cadet. Ketcham placed two other child portraits, "Sissie" and "Sailor," in the Hoosier Salon that year. In the previous year, his "Still-Life" was hung in the Fortieth Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute of Chicago.

On October 30, 1939, a new Western comic strip made its debut in American newspapers. Called Bowleg Bill, it was based on a book, Bowleg Bill, The Sea-Going Cowboy, written by Jeremiah Digges and illustrated by William Gropper (1938). (7) Bowleg Bill is a tall tale in the tradition of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Captain Stormalong. Its author, Jeremiah Digges, was the credited writer on the comic strip Bowleg Bill. The artist was Roy A. Ketcham, who signed his name simply "Ketcham." In August 1941, Bowleg Bill became Ramblin' Bill. Three months later it was taken over by Marvin P. Bradley, called "Tex" even though he, like Ketcham, was a Midwesterner. (8) By then the strip had put behind it any telling of tall tales. "So modern was the strip," wrote Ron Goulart, "that Bradley never got around to drawing a horse during his tenure." (9)

During his run on Bowleg Bill/Ramblin' Bill, Roy Ketcham taught at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Among his students was a young aspiring actress and artist, Barbara Hale. Born in 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois, Barbara graduated from high school in Rockford, Illinois, in 1940 and set off for art school in Chicago in September of that year. Her plan was to become a commercial illustrator and fashion illustrator. That plan changed while she was studying art, for Barbara began modeling for Roy Ketcham for the comic strip Bowleg Bill/Ramblin' Bill. Within a year or two, she was also modeling for newspaper and magazine fashion advertisements. Hollywood scouts took note, and in early 1943, she signed a contract with RKO Radio Pictures. Barbara Hale went on to a successful career in movies and television. She is best known for her part as Della Street on the television show Perry Mason (1957-1966). (10)

According to Allan Holtz's American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide (2012), Roy Ketcham's last episode of Ramblin' Bill was printed in November 1941. The strip came to an end on August 28, 1943, when "Tex" Bradley sent him off to war. Ketcham continued drawing comics, presumably Poor Pa, Aunt Het, and possibly others. (He had also created illustrations for The Child's Story of Science by Ramon Peyton Coffman, better known as Uncle Ray [1939].) Ketcham lived in Blue Island, Illinois, for many years, then Portage, Michigan, and finally Schoolcraft, Michigan. Roy Anderson Ketcham died in Schoolcraft on November 10, 1969. He was a day short of his seventy-fifth birthday.

Bowleg Bill/Ramblin' Bill by Roy Anderson Ketcham, dated October 25, year unknown, and because the year is unknown, the correct title is unknown. (Bowleg Bill became Ramblin' Bill on August 4, 1941.) If this strip is from 1940 or 1941, Barbara Hale may have been a model for one or both female characters. As you can see, Bill was a modern-day character, at least in the later run of the strip. Image courtesy of Giancarlo Malagutti.

Ramblin' Bill by Marvin P. "Tex" Bradley, dated August 28, 1943, and the last episode of a strip begun by Ketcham.

Caricatures of members of the Chicago Palette and Chisel Club, drawn by Paul Plaschke, date unknown. Big, blond Roy Ketcham is number 18, in the lower center of the picture and smoking a pipe. Plaschke, Ketcham, Bradley, Hubbard, Striebel, and Uncle Ray all had Indiana connections, for all were either born, educated, lived, and/or worked in the Hoosier State.

I would like to say a special thanks to the Italian cartoonist and comics historian Giancarlo Malagutti, who led me to find out more about Roy Anderson Ketcham and who generously provided the first comic strip image shown above. Signor Malagutti's website is called Mathias, and you can reach it by clicking:

http://www.mathias.is.it/mathias/h_o_m_e.html

Thanks also to Carolyn, clerk at the Schoolcraft Community Library in Schoolcraft, Michigan, for Ketcham's obituary.

This article is an update to my original posting on Roy Anderson Ketcham, dated July 15, 2012.

Notes

(1) "Roy Ketcham, Former Star Carrier, Twice Winner of Its Salon Prize," Indianapolis Star, Mar. 7, 1937, part 5, p. 3.

(2) Quoted in ditto.

(3) Quoted in "1937 Hoosier Salon Portraiture Winner Studied at John Herron," Indianapolis News, Feb. 18, 1937, part 2, p. 1.

(4) Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney was Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, heiress to his fortune, patron (or matron) of the arts, and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

(5) Quoted in "1937 Hoosier Salon Portraiture Winner Studied at John Herron."

(6) "Poor Pa, Himself!" Sandusky Register (Michigan), Apr. 17, 1927: 3.

(7) Jeremiah Digges was the pen name of journalist, author, editor, speechwriter, and television scenarist Josef (or Joseph) Isadore Berger (1903-1971).

(8) Like Ketcham, Marvin P. Bradley (1913-1986) studied at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. He went on to draw Rex Morgan, M.D., among other comic strips.

(9) The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips by Ron Goulart (1995), pp. 156-157.

(10) In one episode, "The Case of the Absent Artist," Perry Mason clears a cartoonist, played by Wynne Pearce, of murder. In coming full circle, I should note that Barbara Hale's son, William Katt, played television's Greatest American Hero and has written for the comic book version of the show. His character's name in The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983) is Ralph Hinckley, Jr., changed to Hanley after the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life in 1981. As children, we in the Hanley family were thrilled to have a television character--a superhero, even!--with our name.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Hoosiers in Art

A cartoon by Art Young (1866-1943) showing types from the World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. In the upper left, lounging on a wooden chair, is what seems to be the simplest among them. According to the caption, he is "A Posey County Type on the Veranda of the Indiana Building."

Posey County is the southwestern-most county in Indiana and home of the New Harmony Utopian community of the early nineteenth century. It's the only county in Indiana that touches both the Wabash River and the Ohio River. I have never been there, but I imagine that the farming is good and that the timber is almost southern in character and composition. (Indiana by the way is the only state in which our two deciduous conifers are both native. Baldcypress, a southern tree, is found in Posey County. Larch, or tamarack, calls the northern part of the state home.)

Unfortunately for Art Young, he was not born a Hoosier. He was instead native to Illinois. Young worked for the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean early in his career and created this cartoon for the paper's color section. New York newspapers get a lot of attention because of their color Sunday comics--Hogan's Alley (The Yellow Kid), Buster Brown, and so on--but the Chicago Inter Ocean was the first American paper to print in color. This cartoon gave me the idea for today's posting. It's only right that it should come first.

A cartoon by a native-born Hoosier who was transplanted out of state, and referring to a cartoon by a non-native who was transplanted to Indiana. The native was Cyrus Cotton Hungerford (ca. 1889-1983), aka Cy Hungerford, a newspaper cartoonist in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and more famously, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hungerford was born in Manilla, Indiana, not far from my home. He left Indiana early on but returned there for eternal rest. This cartoon, from fifty-seven years ago this month, refers to Toonerville Folks, also called Toonerville Trolley, drawn by Fontaine Fox (1884-1964). Fox was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but matriculated at Indiana University. That's where you will find his collection of original cartoons as well.

It's time for the county fair all over America, and children are carefully showing their livestock and poultry like the girl in this painting by Norman Rockwell from 1947-1948. Times have changed and clothing, too, but you might still see people like this at the 4-H fairgrounds this month. (Note the 4-H shamrock on the papers under the girl's arm.) Every one of them is a Hoosier.

In 1947, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) made a trip to Jay County, Indiana, to take pictures of the Steed family and their neighbors. The artist used those pictures as references for his painting "The County Agent," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1948. From left to right, the people in the painting are Don Steed of Redkey; Mr. Steed's daughter Jama; Jay County Extension Agent Harold Riby (or Herald K. Rippey--I'm not sure as to the correct spelling); Larry and Sharon Lear or Steed (again, not certain); Mr. Steed's wife Martha; and hired hand Arlie Champ.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), a portrait by T.C. Steele (1847-1926). Born in Greenfield, Indiana, Riley was known as the Hoosier Poet and the Hoosier Bard. Steele was the leading artist in the renowned Hoosier Group of the late 1800s and early 1900s. This painting is from 1891. Riley was then in his early forties, and the artist had not many years before returned from studies in Germany. The dark palette and careful brushwork indicate a German influence. Steele's landscapes, for which he known, are much more colorful and impressionistic.

Here is a later portrait of Riley by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). The palette is still dark, but there are rosy tones in the subject's face and hands, and his tie is red. Sargent was trained in France; he is known for his quick, loose, and impressionistic brushwork. Of the two, I believe this to be the more successful portrait. Nonetheless, T.C. Steele was a very fine artist.

Here is the Hoosier Poet on a smaller scale: a U.S. postage stamp from 1940.

I believe this to be a picture of Gene Stratton Porter (1863-1924), author of A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles, but the source on the Internet does not describe or identify the painting, nor does it give the name of the artist.

"The Underground Railroad" by Cincinnati artist Charles T. Webber (1825-1911). Painted in time to be displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, "The Underground Railroad" shows Levi Coffin (1798-1877) and his wife Catherine White Coffin at their work. The Levi Coffin home in Fountain City, Indiana, is a National Historic Landmark.

"The Canal: Morning Effect" by Richard Buckner Gruelle (1851-1914), a member of the Hoosier Group and father of a family of artists in Johnny, Prudence, and Justin Gruelle. The view (from 1894) is of the Indiana Statehouse, and beyond that, of the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. There is in fact a Hoosier in the painting, a woman wearing a red hat. I saw an image of this painting years ago and I have never forgotten it. It came from a self-taught artist. The canal in the picture is just west of Downtown. My grandfather's brother drowned in its waters at the age of four more than one hundred twenty years ago.

A statue of a Doughboy from a cemetery in Monroe County, Indiana. One hundred years ago this summer, the world went to war. America sent hundreds of thousands to men to the Western Front after entering the war in 1917. They proved decisive in victory for the Allies. Hundreds of thousands were also killed, wounded, or died of non-combat injuries or disease. In 1918-1920, the Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people all over the world. When I see a death date of 1919 for a young person in the United States, I can't help but think it was because of the flu. The Riddle brothers, one of whom may be depicted in the statue shown here, may very well have died of the disease that so ravaged the world.

If you go to Monroe County, or Lawrence County, or places close by in Indiana, you will see much that is made of limestone, including the statue of Joe Palooka at Oolitic. Joe Palooka was created by the cartoonist Ham Fisher (1900 or 1901-1955), a Pennsylvanian by birth but also a traveling salesman. He is supposed to have sold Joe Palooka the comic strip first to the Indianapolis Star. Whether that story is true or not, Fisher seems to have had a soft spot in his heart for the Hoosier State. On June 14, 1948, he was on hand to dedicate the Joe Palooka statue at its original location. (It was later moved to Oolitic.) Near Oolitic is the quarry where the limestone used in the Empire State Building was cut.

Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) came to Indiana late and life. He died there and was buried there, in or near Fort Wayne in 1845.

Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) wrote The Hoosier Schoolmaster, one of the most popular of nineteenth century novels. It was adapted to this children's version in the 1940s. The cover illustration is unsigned. In 1812, my family came over from Kentucky into Jefferson County, Indiana, about where Eggleston's book is set. Maybe those are little Bear children running around the school.

Speaking of little bears, here is a picture of the kidnapping of Frances Slocum (ca. 1773-1847), which took place in Pennsylvania in 1778. Frances, renamed Mo-con-no-quah (translated as Young Bear or Little Bear), was removed to Indiana, grew up in the Delaware Indian tribe, and married a Delaware man. In 1837, she was reunited with her family, but she decided not to return to them. Instead she lived out her life in Indiana, a place named for her people.

Mo-con-no-quah in adulthood. The portrait is signed. It appears to be the same signature as in the image above.

O-Saw-Se-Quah (or O Sha Se Qua), Frances Slocum's daughter, a drawing that is perhaps also by the same artist. (Note the distinctive B in the lower right corner. The date appears to be 1904.) American Indians were the first Hoosiers. I'll close with the image of a woman who was descended from them and from the white settlers who displaced them. 

Captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley