Frank E. Schoonover

Born in Oxford, New Jersey, an industrial town, he earned a reputation as a skilled illustrator and as a portrait, figure and landscape painter of lively western scenes.

He was educated at the Model School in trenton, and in 1896 attended the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia where he studied under illustrator Howard Pyle. He opened a studio close to Pyle's in Wilmington, Delaware and received his first western illustration assignment in 1899.

He made his first trip to the West in 1906, visiting Denver, and then took a short trip to Europe. In 1914, he settled in Pike County, Pennsylvania and for a decade had a thriving career as a magazine and book illustrator including commissions for "Treasure Island," "Robinson Crusoe," and "The Swiss Family Robinson." During that time, it is thought that his work reached about five-million readers a month.

However, he determined in the mid-1930s that he could not keep up that pace, and he turned to landscape and portrait painting in which he injected his love of drama that characterized his illustration. Often his painting was dominated by an action-packed figure such as an Indian astride a bucking horse.

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Frank Earle Schoonover (1877 - 1972) owed much to Howard Pyle's belief that an illustrator should thoroughly immerse himself in his subjects, painting those things he knows best. After studying with Pyle, both at the Drexel Institute and at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, he began to receive assignments to do Indian & Frontier subjects. In order to qualify himself properly, he made two trips to the Hudson Bay country in 1903, by snowshoe and dog team, and in 1911 by canoe, observing there the life and customs of the Indians. Over the years he did a great number of excellent, authentic illustrations based on these expeditions. Similarly, he made field trips to other locations, such as the Mississippi Bayou country for a book which he both wrote and illustrated, "Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf". Over his long and productive life, he illustrated for many magazines and books, including Scribner's, Harper's, Century, Colliers and McClures, designed stained glass windows, taught at the John Herron Art Institute and at his own studio, and painted many landscapes of the neighboring Brandywine and Delaware River Valleys.

Credit:

Newman Galleries