Charles Frederick Surendorf, Jr. (1906-1979)

Charles Frederick Surendorf, Jr., was born on November 9, 1906, in Richmond, Indiana. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League, and Ohio State University. In 1929, he moved to Logansport, Indiana, and from there to California (in 1935), living first in Los Angeles, then in San Francisco. In 1946, he moved to Columbia, California, an old ghost town. Surendorf worked in all of those places as an artist, as well as in Tahiti, New Orleans, and the California desert.

In 1949, Charles Surendorf sent word home to his family in Logansport that he had married Barbara Stoner, a former model, beauty queen, and assistant curator of an art gallery in California. Like her new husband, Mrs. Surendorf was a Hoosier, having come from Goshen. The couple had three children together.

Charles Surendorf was a painter and a printmaker. In his younger days, he drew cartoons for his hometown newspaper. In the 1930s or early 1940s, he painted a mural of the Pottawatomie Indians in the Logansport library. Unfortunately that work was lost when the library burned in 1941. Surendorf won many prizes and accolades and had his work widely exhibited. He was also a member of many art associations and groups.

Surendorf was recognized in his time as one of the foremost woodblock/linoleum block printers in the United States. Charles F. Surendorf, Jr., died on May 28, 1979, in Columbia, California, at age seventy-two.

A self-portrait by Charles Frederick Surendorf, Jr., from 1935. This is an early example of his engraving. Others can be found all over the Internet with a simple search for his name. Good luck and happy viewing.

Text copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

James M. Triggs (1924-1992)

James Martin Triggs was born on March 2, 1924, in Indianapolis and was educated in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and Mamaroneck, New York. He served in the U.S. military during World War II and studied at Cornell University and the Pratt Institute. Triggs got his start as a commercial artist working with Stevan Dohanos (1907-1994) and Coby Whitmore (1913-1988). Often working in a trompe l'oeil manner, he did advertising art and painted magazine covers for Argosy and other publications. He was especially interested in airplanes and firearms. Triggs was also an author, with the books The Piper Cub Story (1963) and Used Plane Buying Guide (1962) to his credit. James M. Triggs died on June 26, 1992, in Danbury, Connecticut.

Update (May 27, 2024): There is an article in the April 1985 issue of Southwest Art Magazine on James M. Triggs. It's called "Frontier Mementoes," and its author is Pamela Guthman.

Text copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Sister Esther Newport (1901-1986)

Catherine Newport was born on May 17, 1901, in Clinton, Indiana. In 1918, at age seventeen, she entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, an order residing west of Terre Haute, Indiana. Taking the name Sister Esther, she taught art in middle school and, beginning in 1930, at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Sister Esther was at the Woods, as it is called colloquially, until 1964. After a two-year stint at Marywood School in Evanston, Illinois, she returned to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods to head the art department until 1970.

Sister Esther was educated at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (bachelor of arts, 1932). She received a master of fine arts at Syracuse University in 1939 and an honorary doctorate from Saint Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 1956. In addition to being a painter, illustrator, sculptor, and teacher, she was also a writer, lecturer, founder of the Catholic Art Association (in 1937), and editor (from 1937 to 1940) of Christian Social Art Quarterly (later Catholic Art Quarterly).

Sister Esther died at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods on July 9, 1986, at age eighty-five.

Today, March 20, 2016, is Palm Sunday, and a week before Easter. Indiana artist Sister Esther Newport drew this and the following pictures of the events leading to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for a book called A Bible History, with a History of the Church by Rev. Stephen J. McDonald and Elizabeth Jackson, published in 1940 by Row, Peterson and Company of Evanston, Illinois. I found this book just yesterday at a secondhand store.

The Last Supper

The Agony in the Garden

Jesus Before Caiphas

The Crucifixion

The Entombment of Jesus Christ

Jesus Appearing to Mary Magdalen

The Ascension into Heaven

Christus Rex

Text and captions copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Leo James Beaulaurier (1911-1984)

Painter, illustrator, and muralist Leo James Beaulaurier was born on May 10, 1911, in Great Falls, Montana. We can call him a Hoosier for his three years of study at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Beaulaurier also studied at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and worked odd jobs and in construction until 1963, when he began painting full time. Beaulaurier specialized in scenes of the American West and is known for his portraits of American Indians on black velvet. Leo James Beaulaurier died in Great Falls, Montana, on February 11, 1984.

A portrait of Sitting Bull.

Boss Ribs by Beaulaurier.

Finally, a complete tableau of the Great American West.

Text copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Scoopie by Jerry Stewart (1923-1995)

Many years ago, I found a website called Pioneering Cartoonists of Color by cartoonist Tim Jackson. That's where I learned that Jerry Stewart of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel was also the creator of a comic strip in one of the nation's leading black newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier. In recognition of Jerry Stewart's pioneering efforts as a black cartoonist and newspaperman in Indiana, I would like to show a sampling of his comic strip Scoopie, from 1948-1950. 

Born in Arkansas, Gerald W. "Jerry" Stewart (1923-1995) came to Indiana in 1946 to work for the News-Sentinel, first as an office boy but very soon after that as a cartoonist. His character Scoopie is also a newspaperman, though not always up to snuff. As you can see in the strips below, Jerry inserted himself into his comic strips from time to time. As you can see, too, Scoopie was a good strip, well drawn and with some very funny gags. So here's Scoopie.

Oct. 9, 1948

Oct. 23, 1948

Oct. 30, 1948

Nov. 6, 1948

Nov. 27, 1948

Dec. 11, 1948

Dec. 18, 1948

Dec. 25, 1948

Jan. 1, 1949

Jan. 8, 1949

Jan. 15, 1949

Jan. 28, 1950

Mar. 4, 1950

Text copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

George Washington

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, George Washington was also the first born of American presidents, having come into the world on this date in 1732 (according to the New Style, or N.S.). He has been called "the indispensable man," and it is hard to imagine successful outcomes to the American Revolution and the American experiment in self-government without him.

George Washington never got as far west as what is now the state of Indiana. However, he approached our region in his work as a surveyor and as a military officer in the French and Indian War. A fellow Virginian, George Rogers Clark (1752-1818), helped secure what would become Indiana when he and his men captured Fort Sackville from the British on February 23, 1779 (the day after Washington's birthday, N.S.). Many of Indiana's counties are named after heroes of the revolution, including Washington, Clark, Greene, and Knox counties in the south; Marion, Morgan, Putnam, and Wayne counties in the middle; and DeKalb, Kosciusko, and Steuben counties in the north. George Washington of course served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and as president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. He survived a little more than two years after leaving the presidency and died at his home, Mount Vernon, Virginia, on December 14, 1799.

"George Washington and His Troops" by Frank Schoonover (1877-1972). Though born in New Jersey, Schoonover taught at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis in the early 1930s. He was a student of Howard Pyle at the Brandywine School in Delaware, close to some of the country traveled and fought over by Washington and his Continental Army. Pyle's heroic style shows through in Schoonover's work.

An illustration by Max Francis Klepper (1861-1907), a German-born artist who began his career in Logansport, Indiana. From Stories of New Jersey by Frank R. Stockton (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961, p. 166).

"Washington's Farewell to His Officers" by Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933) of Indianapolis. At around the turn of the century, Yohn was often considered in the company of Howard Pyle as a historical illustrator.

"George Washington Takes the Oath of Office as the Nation's First President" by Joseph Clemens Gretter (1904-1988), aka Gretta, from Glimpses of American History by Clemens Gretta and Leah Berger (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1933, p. 88). Gretter was born in Benton County, Indiana.

This is Black History Month, and it would be remiss to leave out any mention of George Washington and slavery. He was a slaveholder, as was his wife separately. His words and actions on slavery are complex and self-contradictory, however. Washington arranged in his will for the manumission of his slaves and for providing for them from his estate, yet he kept them all his life and even took clever steps to avoid freeing them under the laws of Pennsylvania, where he lived as president. In 1786, Washington wrote to Robert Morris: "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery," yet he also pursued Oney "Ona" Judge, an escaped slave and his wife's property, even up to the end of his life. Oney Judge died on February 25, 1848, in Greenland, New Hampshire, at about age sixty-five. Until that day, she was a fugitive slave and legally the property of the Custis estate. In the end, though, in accordance with his will, George Washington's slaves were freed on January 1, 1801. He was the most prominent of our Founding Fathers to have taken that step. 

Text and captions copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

The International Day of the Cartoonist 2016

One year ago today, on January 7, 2015, five cartoonists were murdered in Paris in the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They were Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous, and Charb--respectively, George David Wolinski (1934-2015), Jean Cabut (1938-2015), Philippe Honoré (1941-2015), Bernard Verlhac (1957-2015), and Stéphane Charbonnier (1967-2015). Their murderers were Islamists, and we must never forget that, but they were also part of a larger force that has always been with us. That force is the drive that makes people want to control the lives of other people--a force that will never die but which must always be resisted.

Last year on this date, I proposed that January 7 be named and forever observed as the International Day of the Cartoonist. Right now, I'm the only one to observe it I think. I hope that others will join in, but even if they don't, I'll continue observing it and continue remembering those who have died or who have been imprisoned, tortured, arrested, oppressed, or denied their rights simply for their art.

Recently, the death of another cartoonist was confirmed. Syrian cartoonist Akram Raslan was arrested by the Syrian regime on October 2, 2012, at the offices of the newspaper Al-Fida in Hama, Syria. Raslan was held, apparently incommunicado, in a Syrian jail. He may have been tortured. His death was confirmed late last year as having taken place in the spring of 2013.

Born in Souran, Syria, in 1978, Akram Raslan drew more than 300 cartoons in support of the revolt against the rule of Bashir al-Assad. In 2013, in absentia, he was given the Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning by the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI). Indiana cartoonist Joel Pett said at the time: "CRNI gives Akram Raslan our annual Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning in recognition of his extraordinary courage in confronting the forces of violence with cartoons that told only the truth." By the time of the award ceremony, which took place on June 29, 2013, Akram Raslan had very likely died as a result of his being jailed.

You can read more about Akram Raslan and other cartoonists at the website of the Cartoonists Rights Network International at the following URL:

https://cartoonistsrights.org/

* * *

Indiana has long given its men and women into service to their country. They of course have included artists, illustrators, and cartoonists. Most returned to civilian life. I know of only one to have died on active duty. His name was Asa Henderson King, and he was born on May 12, 1880, in Boone County, Indiana. His parents were William H. King (1833-1928) and Susannah Jane (Mendenhall) King (1844-1882). Asa was the youngest of their four children and was only two years old when his mother died.

In 1897, Asa Henderson King moved to Clinton County. I know only that he was an artist and cartoonist. On May 4, 1915, three days before the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in New York City. From there he was sent to Fort Jay, New York, for training, then assigned to Company F of the 29th Infantry Regiment. That same year, the 29th Infantry was dispatched to Panama to guard the Panama Canal. The unit returned to the United States in September 1918. Evidently King remained in Panama, for that was where he died, at Camp Gailliard, on June 6, 1919. The cause was heart trouble. Private Asa Henderson King was buried at Corozal American Cemetery in Corozal, Panama. His name is inscribed on the Clinton County War Memorial in Frankfort, Indiana.

Hoosier cartoonist Asa Henderson King (1880-1919). The photograph is from the website Find A Grave.

Text copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley