Harold Von Schmidt

Born may 19th 1893, passed June 3rd 1982

Education California College of Arts and Crafts

Born in Alameda, California in 1893, he was orphaned at the age of five. After a year in an orphanage, he went to live with his grandfather, who had been a forty-niner. As a youth, von Schmidt worked as a cowhand and a construction worker. In 1920 and 1924, he was on the United States Olympic Rugby team.

Von Schmidt began his art studies at the California School of Arts and Crafts while he was still in high school. In 1924, he entered the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. He moved to the suburban community of New Rochelle which was a well-known artist colony and home to many of the top commercial illustrators of the day such as Frank and J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell. Also in residence were Al Parker, Mead Schaeffer and Dean Cornwell, who, along with Tom Lovell.

In 1944, Von Schmidt was recruited by the Air Force to become a war correspondent in Europe. He focused on depicting the small details of a soldier’s everyday life, and flew on a number of bombing missions. Later, he was sent to Japan and recorded scenes of the occupation: ordinary Americans doing mundane tasks in a strange land.

Harold von Schmidt\'s work appeared primarily in Collier\'s Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Liberty, The Saturday Evening Post, and Sunset. Although he preferred magazine work and illustrated few books, he spent two years preparing sixty illustrations for a deluxe edition of Willa Cather\'s Death Comes for the Archbishop. In 1948, he was recruited by Albert Dorne to be one of the founding faculty for the Famous Artists School.

Awards:

Awarded the first gold medal by the trustees of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1968.

Inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1959

Online gallery: https://americangallery.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/harold-von-schmidt-1893-1982/

Harold Von Schmidt History of American Illustration