In 1890, while still enrolled in classes at The Art Students League, Edward Penfield joined Harper and Brothers as a part-time art editor and illustrator. Initially, he created small illustrations for the magazine’s articles or touched up the works of other staff artists. Before long though, he was promoted to the position of art director and began submitting his own works with his first approved advertising poster appearing ahead of the April 1893 issue. The work, a simple depiction of a man reading Harper’s in the rain, was according to lore, an emergency overnight effort to meet a deadline. The undertaking paid off and his first major poster publication was met with immediate applause.
Readers and collectors lauded Penfield’s boldly innovative style. According to Herbert Stone who reported on the piece for The Chap-Book, “it was unlike anything seen in the land before. It was a poster which forced itself upon one: in design and colour, it was striking, and yet it was supremely simple throughout… it was theoretically as well as practically good. The artist had attained his ends by the suppression of details: there were no un-necessary lines”.
Over the next seven years, Penfield would create posters for every successive issue of the magazine. His art revolutionized American poster design in much the same way that Alphonse Mucha and Théophile Steinlen had done in Europe. The long-popular Art Nouveau style was simplified and influences from Japanese ukiyo-e prints and the works of his French and British contemporaries could be seen throughout.
With his illustration work extending to book covers also produced by Harper and Brothers, Penfield became the most acclaimed artist working for the publishing house. He continued at the company until 1901 when politics and reorganization encouraged him to “retire” and pursue freelance illustration. While his time at Harper and Brothers was relatively short compared to the overall scope of his career, it was his illustrations for the magazine that established Penfield as one of the most influential and sought after poster artists in America.
Sourced directly from the artist's estate, the works of Edward Penfield: American Illustrator offer rich insights into the life and work of the man who largely defined American poster art—and commercial design—from the Gilded Age well into the 20th century. Spanning studies for major publications to travel sketchbooks to completed Harper's magazine covers, this collection showcases the breadth and evolution of Penfield's practice, as well as those subjects that captured his interest again and again.
Edward Penfield 1866–1925
Widely regarded as the father of the American Poster Movement, Edward Penfield has become one of the most sought-after and celebrated illustrators of the 19th and 20th centuries. Born in June of 1866 in Brooklyn to Ellen Lock Moore and Josiah B. Penfield, Edward was the third of five children. He received his early education at home from his mother and from Brooklyn public schools, but eventually followed in the footsteps of his uncle Henry Lewis Penfield Jr. in becoming an artist.
Penfield enrolled at the Art Students League in his early 20s, studying under the celebrated painter George de Forest Brush. His work was noticed in a student exhibition by an art editor at Harper & Brothers and upon his recommendation, Penfield was hired as a part-time editor and illustrator by the then art director, Fredrick B. Schell. By 1891, Penfield was working for the publishing house full-time and a year later replaced Schell as art director. His first major work for Harper's monthly magazine was published on the cover of the April 1893 issue and was an immediate success. Penfield’s uniquely bold style complimented Harper & Brothers’ burgeoning focus on more modern content for a younger audience and he grew quickly within the company, illustrating for many of Harper’s various publishing divisions.
While Penfield’s tenure at Harper & Brothers accounted for only about a third of his career, he produced his most recognizable and coveted designs there. Unlike anything in American advertising at that time, Penfield's uncomplicated and graphic designs were easily read by viewers and lent themselves well to the printing processes of the day. Just as celebrated artists like Alphonse Mucha, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Théophile Steinlen were influential in defining the popular, Art Nouveau graphic style at the end of the 19th century in Europe, Penfield's simple yet engaging style similarly set the tone for commercial design in America.
After retiring from Harper & Brothers in 1901, Penfield became a freelance illustrator, contributing to major publications such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Life Magazine, Scribner’s, Literary Digest, The Country Gentleman, and Metropolitan Magazine. Simultaneously, he held a teaching position at the Art Students League of New York and was a member of a number of arts organizations including the Society of Illustrators, where he was later elected president. Penfield died in 1925 at the age of 58 while recovering from a fall that had damaged his spine a year previous. Despite a premature end to his career, his unparalleled artistic approach and extraordinary contribution to American illustration came to define the Golden Age of American poster art and his visual style remains as timeless and collectible today as it was over 100 years ago.
Auction Results Edward Penfield
