STARTING OUT

STEELE’S NEW YORK

STAGE AND SCREEN

HONORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

From Lumber Camp to Legend

Frederic Dorr Steele was born in 1873 in a lumber camp in northern Michigan. His artist mother encouraged his drawing and painting. When a financial crisis in the 1890s spoiled his chances for a college education, he came to New York and found work as architectural draftsman.

Steele studied life drawing in the evenings and eventually took classes at the National Academy and the Art Students League, where his mother once studied, and where he would eventually become an instructor. He became a staff artist at Harper’s Magazine, working with the artist and art editor Edward Penfield.

Going Freelance

As printing became faster and cheaper, publishers increased the quality and number of their illustrations. As magazines made more money, they paid more for manuscripts and attracted the best artists. By the 1890s, wrote Walt Reed, “Nearly every artist who had the ability to draw, was drawn to illustrating for publication.”

With a ready market for his work, Steele became a freelance artist in 1897. His work would go on to accompany stories by Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many other writers.

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An Artist’s Life in the 1900s

In the 1900s, Frederic Dorr Steele’s New York City was home to over three million people, and growing. Almost all the major publishers were based in New York. Thanks to new printing technology and distribution, their businesses were booming. Harper’s and Scribner’s launched new, special interest magazines for women and children. McClure’s Magazine, The Century, and The Saturday Evening Post were among the most popular general interest monthlies.

Great illustrations attracted readers, and the best illustrators became well-paid celebrities. As more artists came to New York, they joined clubs to socialize, exhibit, and learn. There was no distinction between artists and illustrators. The best clubs sought out new members carefully, based on their work.

Steele’s Clubs

the society of illustrators

“The Society of Illustrators was formed in 1901. I was proud of my membership in it, for in those days elections were carefully weighed and anyone who could get a drawing published did not necessarily become eligible.”

Frederic dorr steele

The Society of Illustrators was founded by a group of nine artists and one advising businessman “to promote generally the art of illustration and to hold exhibitions from time to time.” Women were admitted as associate members in 1903 and as full members in 1922. Charles Dana Gibson was president during World War I, a time when many members created original poster designs, including James Montgomery Flagg’s iconic recruiting poster of Uncle Sam.

“We had weekly dinners at a restaurant, and it was a privilege to meet, in informal leisure, Blum, Smedley, Keller, Sterner, Loeb, Gibson, Dan Beard, Art Young, and many others, who sat about a long table, talked of old times and told stories. Also present was our Treasurer, Henry Fleming, coal baron and art patron, who in his off hours liked to mingle in this strange company. We had exhibitions, and they were taken seriously, too.”

frederic dorr steele

Salmagundi art club

“As far as I know, I am the only artist who ever has kept the work of illustrators (done for the magazines) and kept it in order. I began to do this back in the nineties, when I was employed, with two or three other young artists, in the back room of the Harpers’ art department down in Pearl Street. My collection of illustrations continued to grow for twenty-five years. The Salmagundi Club bought the collection, finished the binding, and still have it on their shelves. I’ve since been told many times, by members, what a joy it is to he able to find, say, all the magazine work of Reinhart in one volume, or all the work of Abbey in three.”

frederic dorr steele

Perhaps the most prestigious of Steele’s clubs was the Salmagundi Club. Founded in 1871, Salmagundi is a center for fine arts, artists and collectors, with art exhibitions, art classes, artist demonstrations, art auctions and many other types of events. Originally called the New York Sketch Class and later the New York Sketch Club, it began in Greenwich Village in sculptor Jonathan Scott Hartley’s studio, where a group of artists, students, and friends from the National Academy of Design gathered weekly on Saturday evenings. The name of the club has been attributed to salmagundi, a stew which the group has served from its earliest years, or to Washington Irving’s Salmagundi Papers.

In April 1917, the club purchased Irad and Sarah Hawley’s 1853 Italianate-style brownstone mansion at 47 Fifth Avenue between East Eleventh and East Twelfth Streets. The building was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

“Contrary to some vague traditions, I believe the artist is not more gregarious than the normal human being, but less so. His worktime and playtime are often indistinguishable and he frequently secludes himself; but he is a good sort and worth knowing. I am lucky in having known so many; and also so many fine persons among our coworkers, the artists’ models of both sexes.”

frederic dorr steele

the dutch treat club

The Dutch Treat Club is a society of artists, writers and performers founded in 1905. Primarily social in nature, the club’s members included literary figures and humorists such as Robert Benchley, Rube Goldberg, and Ogden Nash.

“Many illustrators were members also of the group known as the Dutch Treat Club. It was the proud privilege of Rea Irvin and myself to hold a canopy over the head of the Great God Advertising (Charles Gilman Norris) in our first musical show.

frederic dorr steele

Meeting Mark Twain

“When in 1901 the Century started what they hopefully called ‘A Year of Humor,’ I was given my one chance to illustrate a work of Mark Twain. It was a little tale about a chimney sweep who got the ear of the Emperor. I jumped at the chance to talk to Mr. Clemens about it, and punctually at noon, by appointment, I saw him at his home in 12th Street. He was in bed, of course, in the middle of an archipelago of breakfast dishes, puffing his eternal cigar. What could he do for me, he asked. I timidly suggested that nothing in the text indicated time; had he any time or place in mind? In his deep rumbling voice, he replied ‘Well, he isn’t an ancient Emperor, he isn’t a modern Emperor, he’s just an Emperor.’ I split the difference and made him mediaeval, and later was made happy by a letter from the great man, thanking me ‘for that good work.’”

frederic dorr steele

Everybody’s Magazine

Steele was in demand during the golden age of illustration. Both his art and abilities as an art editor were important to Everybody’s Magazine, a monthly with a circulation of about five hundred thousand. Steele illustrated several serialized stories for Everybody’s, including Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Case of Jennie Brice in 1913 and Sight Unseen in 1916. He also illustrated Arthur Somers Roche’s The Eyes of the Blind in 1918 and Joseph Hergesheimer’s Linda Condon in 1919.

Steele’s work for the magazine led to his appointment as director of its art department with a fixed salary of $75 per week, plus $50 a week for his work as a contributing artist. A brochure entitled “Art in the New Everybody’s” described Steele’s role.

“During the World War, the publishers of Everybody’s were trying valiantly to revive that magazine, which had been drooping … I was given a free hand and a small budget. My friends were interested or amused. “Go ahead and do it,” John Adams wrote, “and have a good rest.” It was all right, Harry Raleigh wrote, “but for Gawd sakes don’t lay off drawing”

Frederic dorr steele

Steele described his experiences in an essay called A Veteran Artist Goes Reminiscent.

“I found that I could guide the art department routine, revise the format, do all the make-up and captions, and still have two or three days left each week for drawing. Many of my old friends were glad to work for us – once chosen, they were unrestricted. Benda (accustomed to Hearst’s high prices) was so pleased with a serial story of mediaeval Italy that he delivered some of his installments two months ahead of time, to the embarrassment of our exchequer. Albert Sterner came back from retirement to do a fine set of illustrations. Wallace Morgan, before he sailed for the front in a captain’s uniform, stopped to do a story. Penfield, Falls, Treidler, Raleigh, Fuhr and others did war-time illustrations and cover designs. Bellows contributed two of his striking lithographs. Rockwell Kent at this time invaded the illustration field, and a brilliant color idea of his – a camouflaged ship – provided one of our most effective covers. But Everybody’s failed to revive; I was fired, along with the editor; and, not long after our departure, it ceased to be an illustrated magazine.”

Many of the magazines Steele contributed to underwent format and other changes in the years following World War I, including Harper’s Monthly, which virtually eliminated interior illustrations starting with the issue for September 1925, while Steele was in the midst of illustrating a series of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories.

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The Players was a home for Frederic Dorr Steele for 40 years

The Players, a private club of actors, artists and arts lovers, was a fixture in New York City before Broadway became Broadway. Founded in 1888 by legendary actor Edwin Booth, the club occupies an 1847 Gothic Revival-style mansion on Gramercy Park that was designed by Stanford White and named a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

Steele joined The Players in 1905 and became a beloved member. He wrote and edited the club bulletin, designed and illustrated programs for theatrical productions, and contributed essays to the club’s publications. Several of Steele’s original drawings are on the walls of the club, and a collection of his theatre illustrations is held by the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, a nonprofit library located at The Players.

Influencing Movies

In Steele’s day, many leading actors, authors and artists were members of The Players. Over the years, seven actors who played Sherlock Holmes in various productions have been members of the club: William Gillette, John Barrymore, Raymond Massey, Basil Rathbone, John Gielgud, Roger Moore and Christopher Plummer. In 1932, the columnist and true crime writer Edmund Pearson wrote, “The Steele pictures had in their turn an influence on the stage, or upon the screen, for it seems probable that the enormous number of properties assembled for the Baker Street scene in John Barrymore’s 1922 film originated in Mr. Steele’s fascinating pictures of Holmes’s rooms and their accessories.”

“I can testify to the accuracy of that chance shot,” Steele wrote in The New Yorker in 1937. “I happened to meet Jack Barrymore, just off the train from Hollywood. ‘There’s a film I want you to see,’ he said. ‘Just finished it. Sherlock Holmes. I dug up an old German named Von Seyffertitz for Moriarty. Had a lot of fun. Think you’ll be interested.’

‘Indeed I will,’ I said, hoping the old drawings were remembered. ‘I used to make pictures of Sherlock.’

His eyebrows twisted with the Barrymore grin. ‘Why, hell, we had all your old pictures out on the lot. You’re more to blame than Gillette.’

The New York Herald Tribune

Steele worked regularly for the New York Herald Tribune’s theatre section in the 1930s, where he captured scenes from new plays and revivals for opening night reviews. He drew many of the major stars of the day, including Katharine Cornell, Judith Anderson, Ray Bolger, Tallulah Bankhead, Maurice Evans, and many others. A collection of his theatre illustrations is held by the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, a nonprofit library housed at The Players. The library holds thousands of rare 19th century British and American theater items such books, photos, prompt-books, stage costumes, and props.

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