The papers of Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director Abril Lamarque papers date from 1883-2001, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1904-1999, and measure 6.8 linear feet. His papers contain biographical material; correspondence; writings; files on the many seminars and workshop he taught; scattered financial records; files concerning his business Abril Lamarque Creations; subject files; clippings; printed illustrations of his comics, designs, illustrations, and other work; seven scrapbooks; two sketchbooks, sketches and drawings by him, and artwork by others, including his sister, his brother, Paul Hoffmaster, Enrique Riverón, and H. Portell Vilá; and photographs and negatives depicting Lamarque, Lamarque at work, Lamarque's magic shows, examples of advertising, and friends and colleagues.
There is a 0.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2023 that includes biographical information, condolence letters, sketches, printed material regarding Lamarque, teaching material, printed material regarding Karol Kozlowski, photographs of Lamarque, and misc. Materials date from circa 1883-2001.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director Abril Lamarque papers date from 1883-2001, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1904-1999, and measure 6.8 linear feet. His papers contain biographical material; correspondence; writings; files on the many seminars and workshops he taught; scattered financial records; files concerning his business Abril Lamarque Creations; subject files; clippings; printed illustrations of his comics, designs, illustrations, and other work; seven scrapbooks; two sketchbooks, sketches and drawings by him, and others, including his sister, his brother, Paul Hoffmaster, Enrique Riverón, and H. Portell Vilá; and photographs and negatives depicting Lamarque, Lamarque at work, Lamarque's magic shows, examples of advertising, and friends and colleagues.
Biographical materials include of materials related to Abril Lamarque's many professional and personal associations, including the Art Directors Club, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the National Press Club, the New York University Club, the Society of American Magicians, and the Society of Illustrators. Material types include membership cards, documents, event posters, and yearbooks. Also included are some personal documents, information on Abril Lamarque and his family, Lamarque's collection of humorous business cards, and eulogies written about Lamarque.
Correspondence is generally scattered, but includes letters to and from illustrators and artists including Ernesto Garcia Cabral, Paul Hoffmaster, Conrado Massaguer, and Lamarque's brother, Juan Abril Lamarque. Some letters are illustrated. Also included is business correspondence, subjects and correspondents including the Dell Publishing Company, the New York Times, and correspondence related to workshops and lectures, including his work at Iowa State University and Oklahoma State University.
Writings chiefly document Lamarque's career in graphic and publication design, and consist of articles, an unpublished draft on publication design, manuals, and book reviews. Also included are scripts for magic shows performed by Lamarque. Writings by others are present, and include limericks written about Lamarque by friends and an autobiography of Lamarque's wife, Milagros Abril Lamarque.
The Workshops series consists of advertisements, press releases, handbooks, publication design layout examples, and other materials related to Lamarque's career in teaching publication design workshops and seminars. Also present within the collection are various financial materials. Abril Lamarque Creations materials document Lamarque's design firm, active 1940-1941, which focused on the design and manufacture of modern decorative accessories for the home, such as serving trays, cigarette holders and jewelry. Photographs, drawings, and advertisements in this series document the product design and sales.
The collection includes several subject files concerning the Bacardi Company, the Dell Publishing Company, and Cuban caricaturist and publisher Conrado Massaguer. Files on Massaguer include illustrations, posters, magazines, clippings, and articles. The Subject Files also include materials collected about Mexican caricaturist Ernesto García, self-taught Polish painter Karol Kozlowski, and several other illustrators and political figures of interest to Lamarque.
Printed materials make up the bulk of the collection. Found are numerous examples of his design work for the New York World-Telegram and Evening Mail, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, US News-World Report, Dell Publishing Company, and others; as well as cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations by Lamarque. Clippings of the comic strip Monguito and editions of the Havana newspaper Lunes de Diario de Cuba are present. Printed material also includes posters, including Lamarque's designs for the "Aluminum for Britain" project, which he was asked to discontinue by the U.S. State Department. Also found in this collection are graphic design and illustration clippings collected by Lamarque.
Also found within the collection are seven scrapbooks containing clippings and articles, illustrations, scattered letters, photographs, invitations, artwork, and other materials detailing Lamarque's extensive artistic career and his amateur magic performances.
Original artwork includes drawings, sketches, prints, and design by-products by Abril Lamarque. Artwork by Lamarque includes silkscreens of dictators; drawings and printing plates for Monguito comics; page banners for Film Fun and other publications; and design paste-ups. Artwork created by others found within the series includes caricatures of Lamarque, sketches by Juan Abril Lamarque, and prints by Paul Hoffmaster.
Photographs included in the collection document Abril Lamarque's life and career, and show Lamarque with friends and colleagues, and performing as an amateur magician for both children and adult audiences.
There is a 0.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2023 that includes biographical information, condolence letters, sketches, printed material regarding Lamarque, teaching material, printed material regarding Karol Kozlowski, photographs of Lamarque, and misc. Materials date from circa 1883-2001.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as twelve series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-2001 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1990 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 3: Writings, 1925-1981 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 4: Workshops, circa 1940-circa 1985 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 5: Financial Records, 1924-1989 (4 folders; Box 2)
Series 6: Abril Lamarque Creations, circa 1940-circa 1945 (6 folders; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 7: Subject Files, 1905-1996 (0.5 linear feet; Box 4, OV 14)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1883-1989 (1.5 linear feet; Box 3, 4, 6, and 11, OV 15-17)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1920-1959 (1 linear foot; Boxes 7-9, OV 10)
Series 10: Original Artwork, circa 1914-1988 (0.5 linear feet; Box 4, OV 18)
Series 11: Photographic Material, circa 1920-circa 1985 (0.5 linear feet; Box 5, OV 19)
Series 12: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1883-2001 (0.4 linear feet; Box 20)
Biographical Note:
Eduardo Abril Lamarque (1904-1999) was a Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director who worked primarily in New York City.
Eduardo Abril Lamarque was born in Cuba on August 28, 1904. His parents sent him to the United States in 1916 when he was twelve to study English and business administration. He lived with an American family in Brooklyn. At age 15, Lamarque's first cartoon was published in the Boy Scout section of the New York World-Telegram and Evening Mail. Four years later he created Bla-Bla, a comic strip that appeared regularly in the New York Daily News. He is credited with creating, in the early 1920s, the first Spanish language comic strip that was not translated from English. The title cartoon character, Monguito, was a hapless soul, fully dressed in business suit and hat, who kept getting into sticky situations. Lamarque produced hundreds of these strips which were picked up by the New York based United Feature Syndicate and published daily in Spanish language newspapers throughout Latin America and the United States.
When he was twenty, Lamarque returned to Cuba to work as the artistic director for the Havana newspaper Lunes de Diario de Cuba. He also published a booklet designed to teach the elements of caricature drawing. Lamarque returned to New York and was hired by the New York World Telegram and Evening Mail as a caricaturist. He produced political cartoons and caricatures for the paper, introducing his "radiocatures", which involved providing instructions on the radio for filling in a grid in the newspaper to produce a caricature of well-known figure in the news.
In 1927, at the age of 23, he became the first art director of Dell Publishing Company - a magazine empire that included Film Fun, I Confess, War Stories, Modern Screen, Popular Song, Spotlight, Radio Stars, Theatrical Page, Ballyhoo, and Modern Romances. He continued working there for 14 years.
In 1940-1941, Lamarque established Abril Lamarque Creations, a design firm that specialized in elegant and functional household objects and jewelry in a modernist tradition. His signature piece was the Pallettray, a serving tray modeled after an artist's palette and hand-finished in exotic woods.
Between 1941 and 1946, Lamarque became the first art director for the Sunday edition of the New York Times and redesigned the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times Book Review. Throughout his career, Lamarque designed and redesigned countless magazines and journals, including American Weekly, New York News, Metropolitan Life, Popular Science, This Week, US News-World Report, and others.
In 1948, Lamarque established a successful graphic design studio in New York that provided a full spectrum of design services, including annual reports, posters, product labeling, corporate publications, advertising, logos, package designs, and brochures. His clients included Barcardi Company, Con Edison, Ericcson Telephone, General Cable, Berlitz School, Lipton, Monsanto, and numerous magazines. In 1958, he was given the National Award for Graphic Design in packaging. His design for the annual American Red Cross poster was selected for the 1948 national Red Cross campaign.
His success and high demand as a publication art director, consultant, and designer was attributed to innovative design principles he based on the German Bauhaus School and its philosophy that promoted functional design principles. Lamarque reduced these principles to a set of guidelines suitable for page design and applied them successfully to a wide variety of publication and print layouts.
Lamarque's teaching experience began in the early 1940s with seminars and workshops he conducted for the publishing industry. He joined the faculty of New York University School of Continuing Education in 1958, where he taught until 1963, and later joined the Crowell Collier Institute and taught publication design workshops across the United States and Canada. He also gave workshops and courses at Oklahoma State School of Journalism.
Lamarque was a long-time member of the Society of Illustrators, Society of Art Directors, the Dutch Treat Club, National Press Club, and New York University Club. He was also an amateur magician and member of the Society of American Magicians. He performed magic acts for the annual Christmas party of the Society of Illustrators. Abril Lamarque died in 1999 at the age of 94.
Provenance:
Martha Lamarque Sarno and Lita M. Elvers assembled and donated their father's papers to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in 2001. Sarno donated a small addition in 2023.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Sherwood, Herbert F. (Herbert Francis), 1872- Search this
Extent:
7.5 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Prints
Sketches
Etchings
Diaries
Place:
Larz Anderson Park (Brookline, Mass.)
Date:
1872-1976
Summary:
The papers of painter and muralist Harry Siddons Mowbray (1858-1928) and the Mowbray family measure 7.5 linear feet and date from 1872 to 1976. The papers document Mowbray's career as a painter and decorative muralist as well as his activities with the Commission of Fine Arts, the American Academy in Rome, and the Sculpture Commission of Connecticut. The papers include biographical materials, scattered correspondence, nineteen diaries, personal business records, commission files, organization files, writings and notes, printed materials, three scrapbooks, photographs, and artworks. There are scattered family papers of Helen Mowbray, Florence Mowbray, George Mowbray, and George Siddons Mowbray.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and muralist Harry Siddons Mowbray (1858-1928) and the Mowbray family measure 7.5 linear feet and date from 1872 to 1976. The papers document Mowbray's career as a painter and decorative muralist as well as his activities with the Commission of Fine Arts, the American Academy in Rome, and the Sculpture Commission of Connecticut. The papers include biographical materials, scattered correspondence, nineteen diaries, personal business records, commission files, organization files, writings and notes, printed materials, three scrapbooks, photographs, and artworks. There are scattered family papers of Helen Mowbray, Florence Mowbray, George Mowbray, and George Siddons Mowbray.
Biographical material includes biographical sketches, certificates, obituaries and estate records, and school material. Also found are printed materials from memorial dedications, ceremonies, and dinners held in Washington, D.C., such as menus, invitations, and admission tickets.
Correspondence is scattered and consists of letters from family, professional colleagues, artists, and architects including Charles McKim and William R. Mead. Florence Mowbray's correspondence includes thank you notes and condolences.
Diaries include seventeen written by Harry Siddons Mowbray, one by Helen Mowbray, and one by Florence Mowbray. Harry Siddons Mowbray's diaries date from 1876 to 1927 and reference a trip to the Azores, current events, his career and works of art, and his service with the Commission of Fine Arts.
Writings and notes consist of Mowbray's handwritten autobiography, school writings, lists, and a biography of Mowbray by Herbert Sherwood.
Personal business records consist of a French military sponsorship, gift acknowledgements and receipts.
Commission files include correspondence, printed materials, and writings relating to Mowbray's works of art at: Larz Anderson House, Appellate Court in New York City; Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio; Gunn Memorial Library in Washington, CT; the Life of Christ Series; Madison Square Church in New York City; Morgan Library in New York City; St. John's Church in Washington, CT; University Club in New York City; and F. W. Vanderbilt House in Hyde Park, New York.
Organization files document Mowbray's participation with the American Academy in Rome, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the Sculpture Commission of Connecticut. Files generall include organizational history, correspondence, printed material, writings, reports, meeting minutes, and printed material. Of note are materials relating to the standardization of the flag of the United States.
Printed material includes blank stationery and postcards, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and an issue of Collector's News.
Photographs include two photo albums complied by the Mowbray family, portraits of Mowbray, snapshots with colleagues and friends, and photos of works of art.
One scrapbook compiled by Harry Siddons Mowbray relates to his travels in Rome in 1903-1904. Annother documents his artwork and career, and the third contains clippings concerning his chemical inventions.
Artworks include sketches, prints, and etchings by Harry Siddons Mowbray and others.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 11 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, 1872-1965 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1, 13, 15)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1873-1957 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Diaries, 1876-1929 (1.2 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, circa 1870-circa 1930 (0.2 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Personal Business and Financial Records, 1877-1966 (3 folders; Box 3)
Series 6: Commission Files, 1896-1979 (0.4 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 7: Organization Files, 1904-1928 (0.7 linear feet; Box 3-4, 13, 15-16)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1876-1976 (0.2 linear feet; Box 4, 16)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1874-circa 1928 (4.7 linear feet; Box 4-14, 17-18)
Series 10: Scrapbooks, circa 1890-1920 (0.3 linear feet; Box 5, 13-14)
Series 11: Artwork, 1870-1910 (3 folders; Box 5, 13)
Biographical / Historical:
Harry Siddons Mowbray (1858-1928) was a painter, muralist, and public servant who was active in New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C..
Born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1858, Harry Siddons was orphaned at an early age. He was sent to live with his mother's sister Annie and uncle, George Mowbray, whose name he adopted. Harry Siddons Mowbray attended West Point Military Academy but left to pursue a career as a painter. Upon moving to Paris, Mowbray enrolled at the Atelier Bonnant where he studied under Léon Bonnat. Mowbray received attention for his decorative murals thoughout the East Coast of the United States. His commissions included the J.P. Morgan Library, F. W. Vanderbilt house, Larz Anderson house, Appellate Courthouse of New York City, St. John's Church in Washignton Connecticut, and the Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio. Later in his career, Mowbray returned to painting and completed theLife of Christ series of works.
In addition to painting, Mowbray served on public commissions and committees. He was a member of the federal Commission of Fine Arts from 1921 until his death in 1928. During this time, he was involved in the planning of many Washington, D.C. memorials and public works including the standardization of the flag of the United States of America. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 1903-1904.
Harry Siddons Mowbray married Helen Amelia Millard in 1888. They had one child, George Siddons Mowbray. After his wife's death, Mowbray married her sister, Florence in 1915. Together, Florence and Mowbray had two children. He died in 1928. After her husband's death, Florence Mowbray was active in publishing her husband's autobiography.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 2895) including Mowbray's letters to his son George, travel diaries of Helen Mowbray, writings, artworks, and a photograph. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Harry Siddons Mowbray and Mowbray family papers were donated in multiple accretions by Mrs. Henry S. Mowbray, Mowbray's widow, Hugh McKittrick Jones, Jr., Mowbray's son in law, and Mrs. Helen M. Rogers from 1979-1983. Mrs. Helen M. Rogers also loaned materials for microfilming in 1983.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Prints
Sketches
Etchings
Diaries
Citation:
Harry Siddons Mowbray and Mowbray family papers, 1872-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
