Mad Anthony Wayne by Ursula Koering (1921-1976)

Ursula Koering (1921-1976) illustrated children's books as well as articles and stories in children's magazines. She was associated for many years with Golden Press and the Western Publishing Company. Today I found a magazine with three of her illustrations. The magazine is The Golden Magazine for Boys and Girls. Her illustrations are in a historical article called "Anthony Wayne's Cattle Drive" (Part III) by Martha Brown. The date was March 1968, fifty-six years ago as I write. The culminating event in Martha Brown's article is the attack by Anthony Wayne and Casimir Pulaski on the British at Haddonfield, New Jersey, on March 1, 1778, one hundred forty-six years ago this month.

Here are Ursula Koering's three illustrations:

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Firsts in Indiana Art-Part Two

The First Known Artist in Indiana--According to author Fred D. Cavinder in his compilation The Indiana Book of Records, Firsts, and Fascinating Facts (1985), "the earliest art on record in Indiana" is a wash drawing made by Governor Henry Hamilton of a rock formation along the Wabash River near what is now Logansport. Mr. Cavinder gives the year of composition as 1777. What must surely be the same work is shown in Mirages of Memory: 200 Years of Indiana Art, Volume I (1977), a catalogue of an exhibition from 1976-1977. That catalogue states that Hamilton composed his picture in 1778 rather than in 1777. Here are some details:

     In October of 1778, Hamilton led an expedition of about 230 men southwest from Detroit to Fort Sackville [located in Vincennes in what is now Indiana], then in the hands of colonist sympathizers. The troops travelled by canoe, carrying a heavy load of provisions and arms. The journey was a backbreaking two-and-one-half month struggle with swampy portages, rapids, rain, snow, and accidents. During this time, Hamilton kept an extensive journal documenting the campaign and made a number of sketches directly from the landscape.

     The work included in the exhibition, Shiprock, Wabash River (no. 21), does not appear to be far removed from the military tradition of factual representation. The military man's eye for details is also revealed in Hamilton's journal entry concerning this location. His careful descriptions, in text and sketch, allowed later generations to recognize the exact location of the scene which is near present-day Logansport.

     The sketch of the shiprock reveals that Hamilton understood pictorial representation. The work was done by a man who obviously grasped the principles of design and space, and who was familiar with landscape traditions. This suggests that Hamilton's work was more than a military record. [p. 20]

In other words, Governor Hamilton's drawing may have been more than a mere tool; it may also have been a work of art, and because it no longer has any military or topographic utility, Shiprock, Wabash River may exist now only as a work of art, or at the very least as a historical document. I should add this unequivocal sentence from later in Mirages of Memory: "[Shiprock, Wabash River, 1778] is the earliest known drawing produced in the area now known as Indiana," very likely the source of Fred Cavinder's information. (p. 55) The original source for both accounts may have been Wilbur D. Peat's seminal Pioneer Painters of Indiana (Art Association of Indianapolis, 1954).

There were Europeans in Indiana before Henry Hamilton. The earliest visitors were explorers, traders, and military men, but by the early eighteenth century, there were trading posts or small settlements as well. Again, it seems likely to me that there were artists among the earliest European visitors to Indiana, even if all they drew were maps. We'll have to go with what we have, though, and call Henry Hamilton the first known artist in Indiana, meaning, more precisely, the first artist to create a work of art in what is now Indiana. We can also call him the first watercolorist and the first creator of a landscape in the state. The irony is that Hamilton was a villain in Indiana, a man known as the "Hair-buyer General" for his alleged policy of buying the scalps of white settlers from the Indians who took them. Luckily for us, George Rogers Clark put Hamilton in his place by capturing Fort Sackville and Hamilton himself in 1779.

Shiprock, Wabash River, 1778, by Henry Hamilton, a drawing of 8-3/8 x 10-3/4 inches, drawn in pencil, wash, and ink, and the first known work of art created in what is now Indiana, from Mirages of Memory: 200 Years of Indiana Art, Volume I (University of Notre Dame, 1977).

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The Fall of Fort Sackville by Frederick Coffay Yohn of Indianapolis, a canvas completed in 1923 and later adapted to a commemorative U.S. postage stamp on the sesquicentennial of the event. There are counties in Indiana named Clark and Hamilton. Clark County is named of course for George Rogers Clark, shown here on the left. Hamilton County is not named for Henry Hamilton, however, the figure on the right. Note that Clark and his men are rough, informal, and common, while Hamilton and his men are upright and dressed in finery. This image encapsulates, I think, the idea of America, of the people fighting for and securing their rights against arbitrary--and elitist--power.

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Text and captions copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

The Revolutionary War

This year, 2015, is a year of anniversaries by tens: the 200th anniversary of the end of the War of 1812, the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. It is also the 240th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolutionary War. That beginning took place on April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord when British forces engaged and were forced into retreat by the Minutemen of Massachusetts. The war carried on for eight more years, with the last British troops leaving New York City on today's date--November 25--in 1783. In 1776, we declared our independence. In 1777, we won the battles that turned the tide. And in 1778-1781, we secured our freedom by defeating the British in the West and in the South, with a culminating victory at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Artists, writers, historians, thinkers, and the American people at large have celebrated those events ever since. Illustrators and cartoonists from Indiana are of course among them.

Lucy Fitch Perkins (1865-1937) of Maples, Indiana, was renowned for her Twins series of books. Here is the cover of The American Twins of the Revolution, published in 1926, presumably to celebrate the sesquicentennial of Independence. The Revolutionary War is unique in our history. Fought on our own soil and in every part of our young nation, it touched and influenced the lives of every American as no war has in the time since. Those lives included the lives of children. I would hazard that there have been more children's books about children participating in the Revolutionary War than about any other American war. Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (1943) leaps to mind.

Roy Frederic Heinrich (1881-1943) was born in Goshen, Indiana, but lived much of his life in the East. Late in his career, he executed a series of historical drawings for the National Life Insurance Company of Montpelier, Vermont. Here is his depiction of the Battle of Hubbardton, July 7, 1777, in what is now Vermont. The British and their Hessian mercenaries won the battle but at great cost.

Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933) of Indianapolis was a wunderkind artist, recognized by age twenty-five as one of the nation's top historical illustrators. He specialized in paintings of the American Revolution, many of which were published in Scribner's. Shown here is a scene from the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777, in which the American General Nicholas Herkimer was mortally wounded in a loss to Loyalists or Tories and their Indian allies.

Yohn's painting was used as a design for a postage stamp in observance of the American Bicentennial.

Ten days after Oriskany, on August 16, 1777, American forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Bennington. F.C. Yohn was the artist.

The caption here tells the story. The drawing is by Roy F. Heinrich. Again, the war was one in which all Americans might have taken part, including a housemaid wearing a dress as striped as her flag.

On October 17, 1777, British General John Burgoyne surrendered his forces to General Horatio Gates, thus bringing an end to the Saratoga campaign and helping to assure foreign recognition of the American cause. The artist was once again Yohn.

"The Interrupted Christmas Dinner--A Revolutionary Incident" by T. Dart Walker (1868-1914) of Goshen, Indiana. This image was published by Leslie's in 1900 and illustrates a story with which I am unfamiliar. The fineness and bravery of American women (and children) is evident here, as the American man in uniform hides under the table. 

Despite its victories, the Continental Army under George Washington suffered through a hard winter in 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. F.C. Yohn painted this monochromatic picture.

In 1777, the British opened a new theater in the war, the war in the West. From September 7 to September 18, 1778, Shawnee warriors, allied with the British, laid siege to Fort Boonesborough in what is now Kentucky. (The date on the picture frame is 1777.) The siege failed and only two died on the American side, including a slave named London. Daniel Boone and his brother Squire were at the siege. Squire Boone now lies buried in a cave in southern Indiana. The picture here was painted by Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962) of Brazil, Indiana.

In February 1779, George Rogers Clark, with his small force of men, moved against Vincennes in what is now southwestern Indiana, crossing the flooded Wabash River bottoms from the Illinois country to the west. The children of Indiana learn of Clark's feat in fourth-grade history class and remember it forever after, if only for the story of men wading for miles through freezing floodwaters on their approach to the settlement. Frederick Coffay Yohn painted this picture in 1929. . . 

Only a few years after having painted this picture of the surrender of Fort Sackville at Vincennes, which took place on February 25, 1779. Henry Hamilton, the leader of the British forces, is on the right. George Rogers Clark, older brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame, is on the left. Note the drummer boy on the far left and the girl in the blue dress on the far right. Indiana author Maurice Thompson's bestselling Alice of Old Vincennes (1900), illustrated by Yohn, is set against the backdrop of the Vincennes campaign.  

Yohn's painting was used as a design for a postage stamp commemorating the sesquicentennial of the surrender in 1929. 

For the British, the Southern theater of operations was far more active but only slightly more successful than the war in the West. Among the American heroes of the South was Francis Marion, the famed "Swamp Fox," who gave his name to Marion County, home of the capital city of Indiana. The drawing here is by Carl Kidwell (1910-2003) of Washington, Indiana. It adorns the dust jacket of The Swamp Fox by Marion Marsh Brown (1950). Note the unintentional double pun in the author's name.

In 1775, a newspaper comic strip called The Sons of Liberty went into syndication in anticipation of the American Bicentennial. The creator of the strip was Richard Jo Lynn (1937-2010) of Lagro, Indiana. Here is a piece of promotional art reprinted in Cartoonist Profiles magazine No. 36 (Dec. 1977). 

The Sons of Liberty culminated on the day of the Bicentennial, July 4, 1976, with a Sunday page, the only Sunday during the run of the strip. I believe this is the ending strip, but I can't say for sure, as the magazine article does not identify it as such. In any case, Happy Birthday to the Revolution that began in earnest 240 years ago!

Text and captions copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Carl Kidwell (1910-2003)

Carl Edmund Kidwell was born on August 8, 1910, in the southwestern Indiana town of Washington. As a child he suffered from a prolonged illness that forced an end to his formal education while he was in grade school. Kidwell held a variety of jobs as a young man, including being a painter for the B & O Railroad. (I suspect that on that job, his canvas was the size of a boxcar.) During the war years, he served as a radioman aboard the USS Indianapolis, USS Quincy, PC 608 (a patrol craft), and PC 1238 (a submarine chaser). Three of those four craft were lost, two by enemy action. Kidwell's brother, Logan Kidwell, also served on the USS Quincy. Unlike Carl, Logan Kidwell didn't come home.

Carl Kidwell's art career evidently started with the U.S. Navy. Sometime during the war, he was transferred to the staff of The Chaser, the magazine of the Submarine Chaser Training Center in Miami, Florida, where he worked as a designer and illustrator. His illustrations also appeared in the magazine Our Navy. After the war, Carl Kidwell went to New York and began a career as a freelance illustrator, author, and teacher. The earliest credit I have found for him is work for Blue Book in May 1946. In the field of fantasy and science fiction, Kidwell illustrated "Music from Down Under" by Joe Kennedy for Other Worlds Science Stories (Oct. 1951) and "The Seamstress" by E. Everett Evans for Weird Tales (Jan. 1952). During the 1950s and '60s, he created illustrations for juvenile books of mystery, adventure, Western, and American history, including three of his own, Arrow in the Sun (1961), The Angry Earth (1964), and Granada, Surrender! (1968). Kidwell returned to fantasy in the mid-1960s with covers for the digest-sized Magazine of Horror and Startling Mystery Stories.

The last credit I have found for Carl Kidwell is illustration for Smugglers' Island by Martha C. King (1970). After a long life and career, he passed away on July 2, 2003, in New York City and was buried in his hometown, just a few blocks away from his boyhood home.

Text and captions copyright 2012 Terence E. Hanley

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

Charles Hubbard Wright (1870-1939)

Charles Hubbard Wright was born on November 20, 1870, in Knightstown, Indiana, and studied at the Art Students League in New York, where he lived and worked for most of his life. By age twenty-five, Wright had made a name for himself as a poster artist, or enough for a mention in Charles Hiatt's Picture Posters, which was printed in London in 1895. In addition to drawing black-and-white cartoons for Judge magazine, Wright was a fine artist who worked in oil and watercolor. He was a member of the Society of Illustrators, New Rochelle Art Association, Salmagundi Club, New York Water Color Club, and Guild of Free Lance Artists. He exhibited with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Society of Independent Artists. Little else is known of his life or career. Wright died in 1939.

A poster design by Charles Hubbard Wright, probably from the late 1890s or thereabouts.

A line of bathing beauties from Judge magazine of the 1910s . . .

and a historical scene perhaps from sometime later, beautifully done despite the subject matter.

Text copyright 2010, 2024 Terence E. Hanley