Walter M. Baumhofer (1904-1987)
Mystery on the Snow, c. 1934
Cover illustration for “The Mystery on the Snow” by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent) for Doc Savage Magazine (May 1934), later published as Book 15 in the Doc Savage series (1934) with a different Baumhofer painting on the paperback cover.
Oil on canvas
Collection of Society of Illustrators, 083.031

The strong, tanned, clean-shaven countenance doing battle in the snow is Doc Savage, whose bronze skin, golden eyes and bronze hair were the reason for the appellation, “Man of Bronze.” Clark Savage, Jr., a.k.a. Doc Savage, was a fictional heroic-adventure character published in the 1930s and 40s, created by Henry W. Ralston and John L. Nanovic of Street and Smith Publications. The main author of the story series was Lester Dent (1904-1959), who composed his work under the name, Kenneth Robeson. The publisher offered Doc Savage stories in 181 issues of the Doc Savage Magazine.

Illustrator Walter M. Baumhofer was the creator of many of the early covers of the Doc Savage series. In 1922 he won a New York city-wide poster contest which earned him a scholarship to Pratt Institute where he studied under Dean Cornwell and H. Winfield Scott. While still in school, Baumhofer began producing ink illustrations for Adventure magazine stories. By 1926 he had sold his first pulp cover. Soon Baumhofer became a dominant force in the pulp-magazine market, creating over 1500 illustrations. Baumhofer’s extremely successful pulp image career lead him to be known as the “King of Pulps.” In 1937 he joined the American Artists agency and began to sell freelance illustrations to a variety of popular magazines known as slicks*, such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Colliers. By the 1950s, Baumhofer switched to illustrating men’s adventure magazines such as True, Outdoor Life, and others.

The fictional character Doc Savage was a brilliant scientist with a photographic memory who had been trained from birth to fight evil. Author Lester Dent described Doc as a cross between “Sherlock Holmes with his deducting ability, Tarzan of the Apes with his towering physique and muscular ability, Craig Kennedy with his scientific knowledge, and Abraham Lincoln with his Christliness.”** Doc’s personal oath expresses his character and his world view:

Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.

Doc’s companions on his adventures are five accomplished individuals: Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair, an industrial chemist; Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks, an attorney; Colonel John “Renny” Renwick, a construction engineer; Major Thomas J “Long Tom” Roberts, an electrical engineer; and William Harper “Johnny” Littlejohn and archaeologist and geologist.

Adventure characters and super heroes, like Doc Savage, The Shadow, Superman, and Batman, exploded in American culture in the 1930s when hope was in short supply. With more brains and physical strength than the rest of the human race, these super characters conquered foes and eradicated evil, in so doing they provided a positive and uplifting focus for every day people.

In this adventure, “Mystery on the Snow,” Doc journeys north to a Canadian winter wilderness to solve a billion-dollar riddle: Who or what has committed murder in an attempt to possess the secret of the miracle called Benlanium? In the snow country Doc, his companions, and the beautiful, desirable Canadian detective Midnat D’Avis, battle the forces of evil and a gang of French-Canadian thugs to find Doc’s friend Ben Lane and to secure Lane’s discovery – a mountain of Benlanium.

Baumhofer’s terrific cover image for this story is a focused look at Doc battling one of the minions of evil. Baumhofer understood how to get the most information across about a story through the close up of an active scene. The cool, unruffled, and handsome Doc Savage is clearly winning this confrontation. A puff of heated air explodes from his enemy’s mouth as he stumbles backward in contrast to the unhurried unmarred visage of Doc Savage. Baumhofer used violet blue shadows in and on the white of the enemy’s parka in contrast to the cool green shadow tones in the white fur of Doc’s parka reinforcing the cool action of the hero. Doc’s chiseled bronze features are framed by the dark evergreens behind him, while the falling enemy’s body is embraced by the white of the snow-covered landscape. Is there any question that Doc will win this confrontation?

Tune in again next week.

*A popular magazine printed on coated paper stock and intended to appeal to sophisticated readers.

** http://thepulp.net/docsavage.html A professor of chemistry, Craig Kennedy was a scientific detective who used his knowledge of chemistry and psychoanalysis to solve cases. He also utilized scientific devices which were at that time considered exotic (lie detectors, gyroscopes, and portable seismographs) in the solution of his work. Kennedy became the prototype for American scientific detectives and their adventures.

March 4, 2010

By Joyce K. Schiller, Curator, Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies
at the Norman Rockwell Museum

Frank E. Schoonover        (1877-1972)
Getting Ready to Go Up (Contact) and Dropping Bombs Over German Country (Bombing), 1918
Illustrations for “Our War Eagles” in Red Cross Magazine (July 1918): 17 & 18; Contact was also used as paper book cover image for Deeds of Heroism and Bravery, ed. by Elwyn A. Barron (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Pubs., 1920)
oil on canvas
Lent from the Collection of Don and Martha DeWees

Contact and Bombing were painted by Frank E. Schoonover as part of a series of four illustrations  focused on the activities of American aviators and their ground crews published in the Red Cross Magazine during World War One (also known as The Great War and The War to End All Wars.) Despite years of isolationism, American troops arrived in France to join the allied forces in the beginning of July 1917. The war ended in November of 1918. The purpose of the Red Cross Magazine story and images, in part, was to focus America’s attention on their boys overseas. Because the illustrations were created for the American Red Cross, the story was no doubt also used as a prod to help raise monies to be used to assist American troops involved in the war effort.

Prior to America’s entry into The Great War, the American Red Cross was focused on first aid, water safety, and public health programs. With the onset of the war, the Red Cross experienced explosive growth: the number of local chapters grew from 107 in 1914 to 3,864 in 1918; individual membership expanded from 17,000 to more than 20 million adult and 11 million Junior Red Cross members. Overseas the Red Cross staffed hospitals and ambulance companies and recruited 20,000 registered nurses to serve the military.

The article these images accompanied was titled, “Our War Eagles.” Interestingly the designation of “war eagles” was later used to identify the war airplanes and their staff of World War II through the Korean War era.*  Prior to the Great War the United States military air contingent was the Aeronautical Division of the U. S. Signal Corps. In 1914 their designation changed to the Aviation Section of the U. S. Signal Corps. For a brief period in May 1918 they were known as the Division of Military Aeronautics and then they were transformed into the U. S. Army Air Service.**

Aircraft began to be used militarily for reconnaissance as early as 1911 in the Italo-Turkish War. Soon aviators were dropping grenades and taking aerial photography. By 1914, planes and manned observation balloons were used for reconnaissance and for ground attacks. The two-seater plane in Contact appears to have been modeled after a Curtiss JN4 and a JN-4D,  known as a “Jenny.” It was never used in combat, but served to train pilots of the U. S. Air Service. The plane’s wing insignia, a white five-pointed star with a red central circle inscribed in a blue circle, was carried on the uppermost and lowermost surfaces of the wings, as seen in Contact, and was used as the national marking of U. S. airplanes from May 19, 1917 through January 11, 1918. The plane’s rudders were painted with a blue-white-red striping and the plane’s fuselage carried no markings. 

In his painting Bombing, Schoonover may have fudged the technical reality of the air plane’s wings (which is not a Jenny, but probably a sleek French design) and their bracing, in order to provide a clearer view of the pilot and the bomb. Mounted in front of the pilot, who holds a bomb in his right hand, is a machine gun. According to a report produced after the war was over, one of the greatest challenges was creating an internal timing device that would synchronize the triggering of the machine gun with the movement of the propeller out of harms way.***  As we can see in Contact, another solution was to cover the propeller’s blades with metal armor in an attempt to protect the wooden blades.  The pastel palette Schoonover used in these paintings belies the seriousness of the aviator’s actions. In Bombing, notice how Schoonover painted the wisps of cloud slipping over the wing to signify the motion of the machine through the air. These paintings are almost lyrical depictions of a horrific reality.

*War Eagle is also the battle cry and symbol of Auburn University; and in the 19^th century the war eagle as used as the rank insignia of a United States Colonel.

** They did not become the Air Corps until July of 1925.

*** “Aircraft Machine Guns” from “United States Army Aircraft Production Facts,” compiled at the request of the Assistant Secretary of War by Col. G. W. Mixter, A. S., A. P. and Lieut. H. H. Emmons, U. S. N. R. F., Of the Bureau of Aircraft Production (January  1919), see http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft-articles/31798-aircraft-machine-guns.html   The synchronization gear was invented by a Dutch person in Germany n 1915.

February 25, 2010

By Joyce K. Schiller, Curator, Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies
At the Norman Rockwell Museum