 | Samuel Loren Schmucker was born February 20, 1879, in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania. Sam contracted polio as a youth, and the illness left his right (dominant) arm crippled. He adopted a clawlike grip to draw and paint, with all movement coming from his arm, not his hand. Sam had obvious artistic talent and by the age of 14 acquired a following in Reading. Schmucker enrolled in drawing (1896-97) and still life painting (1898-99) at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The following school year (1899-1900) he studied at the Howard Pyle Institute at Drexel, also in Philadelphia. Many of Pyles' students went on to become some of the most successful and influential American artists of the 20th century including Maxfield Parrish, Jessie Willcox Smith, N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, and Stanley Arthurs. Sam fell deeply in love with Katharine Rice, another student enrolled at the PAFA (1902-04). Katharine's image with upswept hair, high cheekbones, and wide-set eyes was the inspiration for his work with the Detroit Publishing Company, © 1907, and later the John Winsch Company, 1909-1915. Sam died suddenly of a heart attack at the young age of 42 in 1921, and did not realized widespread recognition in his lifetime. Perhaps one of the reasons he was not well known outside the postcard hobby was that he did not illustrate books or magazine covers like many of the other students who studied under Howard Pyle. Schmucker is recognized as the best American postcard artist from the Golden Age. This is a very prestigious honor when you realize that literally hundreds of artists were designing postcards at this time. |
Order Information for Limited Edition Postcards
|
