EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 27 © 2019 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

48 Born inNewYorkCity in January 4, 1861, a fewmonths ahead of the Civil War, Charles Schreyvogel, the second of three brothers, grew up in a poor family of German immigrant shopkeepers on the Lower East Side of New York. While very young, his family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, which at the time had a tightly knit German- American community. Schreyvogel studied at a local school, and was soon surprising his teachers with his charming sketches. His father, on the other hand, wasn’t amused with his son’s talents. “My parents were averse to my becoming an artist,” Schreyvogel would recall in ‘My Bunkie and Others’ (a compilation of some of his artwork accompanied with a brief biography written by himself), “they thought all artists were bound to starve — and they weren’t far from wrong.” Although his parents held in low esteem his wanting to be an artist as a profession, they nonetheless did not wholly ignore his temperament, and had himapprenticed as a die-sinker instead. Young Schreyvogel held onto that job until he could get another in a lithographing shop that was more in line with what he wanted to do. It was while working there that he met Henry August Schwabe, another German expatriate who had worked as a painter and glass designer at Stuttgart. Schwabe had studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in both Cologne and Munich before coming to New York in 1871 to continue his studies under William Chase at the National Academy of Design. Schwabe’s principal talents weren’t only his brush, but his teaching ability which he did successfully at the Newark Art League. He had noticed Schreyvogel’s artistic talents, and persuaded him to enrol at the Art League and take art classes there. However, Schreyvogel didn’t have money to pay for art classes, and so taught himself how to draw. By 1880 he was earning extra money by giving art lessons to others. In the early 1880s Schwabe introduced him to Dr. William Redwood Fisher, an art enthusiast who also recognized Schreyvogel’s talent, and urged him to study in Europe. Again, the lack of money made him hesitate, and besides “Who’ll take care of mother?” he asked his two brothers. However, his two brothers selflessly pooled in all their savings so that he could take the trip to Europe. They were worried about him taking the trip as Schreyvogel, then twenty-five, was slender and frail RIGHT: Breaking Through the Line , oil on canvas, 1904. Caught in the middle of the action, as one of the cavalrymen aims his gun at the viewer. Remember, this was done before such things could be seen at the movies, and it all came from the artist’s imagination.