American Illustrators

Please check back for brief listings on some of our favorite American illustrators!

GUTMANN, BESSIE PEASE (1876-1960)
A prolific illustrator of books & magazines, prints, postcards & greeting cards, calendars etc, whose work is much admired and collected for her images of babies and children. Bessie Collins Pease was born in Philadelphia, attended the Philadelphia School of Design from Women, the Chase School for Art and the Art Students' League. In 1903 she was employed by the publishing company of Gutmann and Gutmann, and in 1906 married one of the firm's partners. She worked as an illustrator throughout her life, "producing over 600 pieces of art... the 'Gutmann babies' were considered necessary for every home in the 30s and 40s."
Sources:
Christie, Victor J.W. Bessie Pease Gutmann Her Life and Works. Radnor, PA: Wallace-Homestead Book. 1990.
Christie, Victor J.W. Bessie Pease Gutmann Published Works Catalog. Third Edition. Ocean Township, NJ: Park Avenue Publishers. 1986.

MCINTOSH, FRANK (1901 - )
Frank McIntosh is perhaps most well known for the advertising art he produced for the Matson Line's cruises to Hawaii, but prior to that he designed many striking and colorful covers for Asia magazine which show the influence of the prevailing Art Deco style. A 1939 luggage sticker and ticket envelope designed for the Matson Line were followed by six menu covers which were widely collected and used for interior design at the time, and continue to be so. McIntosh was born in 1901 in Portland Oregon where he grew up before moving to San Francisco to study art, developing a special interest in stage design. He studied in New York with theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes for a year, but then turned to illustration with a long run of designs for Asia magazine, followed by his work for Matson lines. After the war the work of Eugene Savage was used on the Matson line menus. McIntosh was a collector of Asian art; in the early 1960s he had a gallery in Los Angeles dealing in Oriental paintings and accessories.
Sources:
Brown, DeSoto. "Beautiful, Romantic Hawaii: How the Fantasy Image Came to Be" in The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Volume 20 (1994).
Mahoney, Bertha E. et al. Illustrators of Children's Books 1744-1945. Boston: The Horn Book, 1970.