Edward Penfield (1866-1925) (60 works)

3 June 2012

6 294

Category: Art and hand-drawn graphics, 0+

Edward Penfield (June 2, 1866–1925) was a leading American illustrator during the era known as the "Golden Age of American Illustration" and is considered the father of the American poster. His work is included in almost every major book on American illustration or poster history. He is also an important figure in the development of graphic design.

He was born June 2, 1866, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ellen Locke Moore and Josiah B. Penfield. He first studied at the Art Students League of New York. He worked under the direction of George de Forest Brush, known for his romantic scenes of American Indian life. He first worked at Harper's Weekly and then became an art director. He developed his unique style of simplified figures with bold outlines in a setting free of extraneous detail. He wrote and published a book called Dutch Sketches, which was published by Scribner's in 1907.

His posters were bold and stood out clearly from a distance. While artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, and Toulouse-Lautrec popularized the poster in Europe, Penfield accomplished the same feat in the United States. For his posters, Penfield used simple shapes and a limited palette of colors, in keeping with the primitive reproduction techniques of the era.