Boat in Dry Dock
Dublin Core
Title
Boat in Dry Dock
Creator
Beckhoff, Harry
Format
12 x 16 inches (overall)
11 x 15 inches (image)
11 x 15 inches (image)
Identifier
876
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Biography
Harry Beckhoff was an American illustrator born in 1901 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
He studied at the Artist Students League under George Bridgeman who taught Norman Rockwell along with a host of of other well known painters and illustrators, such as Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell and others. Fellow students with Beckhoff at the ASL were Mead Schaeffer, Saul Tepper and Dan Content, all who became well known and respected during the Golden Age of magazine illustrations.
Harry Beckhoff was very much influenced by French artists, Charles Martin, Andre Marty and Pierre Brissaud, whose work could often be seen in Vogue, Home and Garden and Harper’s Bazaar. Beckhoff had a unique approach to executing his work: he would do small but very accurate thumbnails (that even included clearly defined facial expressions) which he would blow up to about five times their original size and then ink in their outlines. He then added tone and colour with flat washes. One of his friends and fellow artist who never seized to be amazed by Beckhoff’s method was James Montgomery Flagg.
In 1929, Beckhoff’s very first magazine illustration was published in The Country Gentleman.
In the early 1940's Harry Beckhoff illustrated what must have been an extremely lucrative series of ads for Birds Eye frozen foods that regularly appeared in the front pages of Life magazine.
For over half a century Harry Beckhoff would illustrate hundreds of periodicals and dozens of advertisements but he is mostly remembered for illustrating those lovable, wonderful Broadway characters by the famous writer Damon Runyon in Collier’s.
Harry Beckhoff died in 1979.
He studied at the Artist Students League under George Bridgeman who taught Norman Rockwell along with a host of of other well known painters and illustrators, such as Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell and others. Fellow students with Beckhoff at the ASL were Mead Schaeffer, Saul Tepper and Dan Content, all who became well known and respected during the Golden Age of magazine illustrations.
Harry Beckhoff was very much influenced by French artists, Charles Martin, Andre Marty and Pierre Brissaud, whose work could often be seen in Vogue, Home and Garden and Harper’s Bazaar. Beckhoff had a unique approach to executing his work: he would do small but very accurate thumbnails (that even included clearly defined facial expressions) which he would blow up to about five times their original size and then ink in their outlines. He then added tone and colour with flat washes. One of his friends and fellow artist who never seized to be amazed by Beckhoff’s method was James Montgomery Flagg.
In 1929, Beckhoff’s very first magazine illustration was published in The Country Gentleman.
In the early 1940's Harry Beckhoff illustrated what must have been an extremely lucrative series of ads for Birds Eye frozen foods that regularly appeared in the front pages of Life magazine.
For over half a century Harry Beckhoff would illustrate hundreds of periodicals and dozens of advertisements but he is mostly remembered for illustrating those lovable, wonderful Broadway characters by the famous writer Damon Runyon in Collier’s.
Harry Beckhoff died in 1979.
Category
WSPAC
Media
Sketch
Media Details
Pen and ink on paper, mounted on cardboard
Signature Position
Signed, lower left
Donor
Howard Munce
Citation
Beckhoff, Harry, “Boat in Dry Dock,” Westport Public Schools Digital Collections, accessed April 12, 2021, https://collections.westportps.org/items/show/962.
Item Relations
| This Item | dcterms:relation | Item: Harry Beckhoff |
| This Item | dcterms:relation | Item: Staples Art Storage |