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Dean Cornwell

1892 - 1960

Death-PlaceNew York, NY

Birth-PlaceLouisville, KY

BiographyDean Cornwell moved from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago, Illinois, at the age of nineteen. From 1911 until 1915, he worked for "The Chicago American" and "The Chicago Tribune" and attended the Chicago Art Institute. Later, while living in New York City, he studied at the Art Students League and was mentored by Harvey Dunn (1884-1952), a well-known instructor. From 1922 until 1924, Cornwell, also known as the "Dean of Illustrators", was the president of the Society of Illustrators and in 1959 was inducted into the Illustrators Hall of Fame. His illustrations appeared in a variety of popular magazines such as "Harper's Bazaar", "The Saturday Evening Post", and "Good Housekeeping", but he was mainly associated with "Cosmopolitan".

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Dean Cornwell (March 5, 1892 - December 4, 1960) was an American illustrator and muralist. His oil paintings were frequently featured in popular magazines and books as literary illustrations, advertisements, and posters promoting the war effort. Throughout the first half of the 20th century he was a dominant presence in American illustration.[1] At the peak of his popularity he was nicknamed the "Dean of Illustrators". Cornwell was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Charles L. Cornwell, was a civil engineer whose drawings of industrial subjects fascinated Cornwell as a child. He began his professional career as a cartoonist for the Louisville Herald. Soon thereafter he moved to Chicago, where he studied at the Art Institute and worked for the Chicago Tribune. In 1915 he moved to New York City and studied in New York City under Harvey Dunn at the Art Students League of New York. Eventually he traveled to London to study mural painting as an apprentice to Frank Brangwyn.

Cornwell's paintings graced the pages of Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping magazines, illustrating the work of authors including Pearl S. Buck, Lloyd Douglas, Edna Ferber, Ernest Hemingway, W. Somerset Maugham, and Owen Wister. He painted murals for the Los Angeles Public Library, the Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands, California, the Eastern Airlines Building (now 10 Rockefeller Plaza), the U.S. Post Office in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Warwick New York Hotel in New York City, the New England Telephone headquarters building in Boston, the Davidson County Courthouse and Sevier State Office Building in Tennessee, and the Centre William Rappard in Geneva, Switzerland. His ambitious mural for the Los Angeles Public Library was a rendering of the history of California.

Cornwell taught and lectured at the Art Students League in New York. He served as president of the Society of Illustrators from 1922 to 1926, and was elected to its Hall of Fame in 1959.[2] He died in New York City.

REFERENCES

Anne-Leslie Owens, Dean Cornwell, The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
Telephone Men and Women at Work

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