Grosz, George (26 July 1893–06 July 1959), artist and poet, was born Georg Ehrenfried Groß in Berlin, Germany, the son of Karl Groß and Maria Schultze. Grosz spent most of his childhood in Stolp, Pomerania, where his father, a failed restaurateur, became steward of a Freemasons’ Lodge. After his father’s death in 1900, his mother moved for two years to Berlin, where the family lived in meager circumstances; she then took a position as manager of an officers’ club in Stolp. As a boy, Grosz became fascinated with America, especially through the stories of ...
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Dennis Wepman
Herford, Oliver (01 December 1863–05 July 1935), poet, illustrator, and wit, was born Oliver Brooke Herford in Sheffield, England, the son of Brooke Herford, a Unitarian minister, and Hannah Hankinson. His father, a noted clergyman, editor, and author of hymns, brought his wife and nine children to the United States on a visit in 1875 and was persuaded to remain as minister of the Church of the Messiah in Chicago. In 1882 or 1883 the family moved to Boston, where Dr. Herford served at the Arlington Street Church and as a preacher at Harvard until returning to England in 1893. Oliver studied at a boarding school in Lancaster, England, before coming to the United States, and he attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, from 1877 to 1879. He withdrew to study at the Art Institute of Chicago and later at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. He continued his art studies in Germany, at the Slade School in London, and at the Académie Julian in Paris....
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Georgia B. Barnhill
Linton, William James (07 December 1812–29 December 1897), wood engraver, printer, and poet, was born in London, England, the son of William Linton, an accountant and provision broker, and Mary Stephenson. In 1818 the Lintons moved to Stratford, where he attended Chigwell School, learning some Greek and Latin and reading illustrated miscellanies and novels, including those of Sir Walter Scott. He moved to London in 1828 in order to serve an apprenticeship with George Wilmot Bonner, a wood engraver. Subsequently he worked for two leading engravers, William Henry Powis and John Thompson, and then from 1840 to 1843 for John Orrin Smith. His work appeared in the ...
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Bonnie Stepenoff
O’Neill, Rose Cecil (25 June 1874–06 April 1944), illustrator and writer, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Patrick O’Neill, a bookseller, and Alice Asenath Cecelia Smith, a former schoolteacher. At the time of her birth, the O’Neill family occupied “Emerald Cottage,” a picturesque home with cupids and wreaths of roses ornamenting the ceiling in the octagonal living room. It is possible that these cupids, imprinted on her memory, later inspired her famous “Kewpie” illustrations of plump infants with tiny wings. In 1878 her family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and at the age of thirteen, O’Neill, who attended parochial school, won a prize, awarded by the ...
