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Russell Patterson
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Russell Patterson (December 26, 1893 – March 17, 1977) was an American cartoonist, illustrator and scenic designer. Patterson's art deco magazine illustrations helped develop and promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper.

Key Information

Russell H. Patterson was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Although he claimed he knew at age 17 that he wanted to be a magazine cover artist, he took a circuitous route to his ultimate success in that field. His family left his hometown of Omaha and settled in Montreal when he was still a boy. He studied architecture briefly at McGill University, then became an undistinguished cartoonist for some newspapers in Montreal, contributing Pierre et Pierrette to La Patrie. Rejected by the Canadian army at the start of World War I, he moved to Chicago to become a catalog illustrator. His early career included interior design for department stores like Carson Pirie Scott & Company and Marshall Field's.

A trip to Paris gave him the opportunity to paint and attend life-drawing classes. However, it also left him in debt, and so he reluctantly returned to the dull work of advertising art in Chicago.

From 1916 to 1919, he intermittently attended the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1922 to 1925, Patterson, as Charles N. Landon had done before, distributed a mail-order art instruction course. Consisting of 20 lessons, it was called "The Last Word in Humorous Illustrations." Despite the finality suggested by that title, he afterwards contributed to the instruction books of the Art Instruction Schools.

In 1924, Patterson made an attempt to carve out a living as a fine artist. Traveling to the Southwest with his paintings, however, he found the art galleries indifferent to his work.[1][2]

Illustration

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Patterson became famous for covers like this one for Life (March 10, 1927).

In 1925, having arrived in New York City, Patterson suddenly found his direction. He put aside his fine arts ambitions and turned his talents toward illustration. Drawing on his experience sketching beautiful women in Paris, he began adorning covers and interiors for magazines like College Humor and Judge, and later Life and Ballyhoo with his vivacious flappers. Within a couple of years, Russell Patterson the illustrator went from obscurity to celebrity, at a time when the leading graphic artists were as famous as movie stars. As his career blossomed, his ubiquitous version of the modern Jazz Age woman graced the covers and interior pages of The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Redbook and Photoplay, among many other magazines. As celebrated at that time as the "Gibson Girl" had been years before,[3] his "Patterson Girl" was, in the words of Armando Mendez, "simultaneously brazen and innocent."[1] By incorporating the day's faddish "raccoon coats and flapping, unbuckled galoshes in his drawings, Patterson became a pacemaker in setting styles."[4] Women of the time turned to Patterson's work to follow trends in clothing, jewelry and cosmetics. Martha H. Kennedy cites Patterson's dependence on the "graphic power of elegant, outlined forms, linear patterns of clothing and trailing smoke to compose strongly decorative, eye-catching designs."[5]

In the late 1930s he was designing Christmas toy windows for In 1940 he took on a job from, creating a promotional item called "The Great Map of New York" (Patterson had just prior begun a run of five annual R.H. Macy & Co. Christmas-toy window designs). The large map was illuminated and captioned in a style that evoked such charts from the Age of Discovery. Text on the map described it as "A chart neither too literal nor too emotional, shewing the city New York replete with the wondrous Spectacles, Mysteries, and Pastimes of the natives... Done in the year of the New York World's Fair – 1939."

Broadway

[edit]

Branching out from magazine illustration, Patterson worked on Broadway on a number of productions in various creative capacities: The Gang's All Here (1931) as Costume Designer; Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) as Costume Designer, Director and Scenic Designer; Hold Your Horses (1933) as Costume Designer and Scenic Designer; Fools Rush In (1934) as Scenic Designer; Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 as Costume Designer; and George White's Scandals (1936) as Scenic Designer.[6]

Films

[edit]
One of Patterson's rough scenic designs, for the film Give Me a Sailor (1938).

He also worked in Hollywood for the silver screen. Patterson had an on-screen part playing himself in,[7] and created lifelike dolls he called "Personettes" for, the film Artists and Models, which starred Jack Benny (four other cartoonists including Rube Goldberg also appeared).[8] A New York Times movie reviewer wrote on August 5, 1937, "the appearance of the 'Personettes' struck me as satire of a high order. The puppets, you see, have a production number of their own… It seemed to me to be the perfect spoof of the usual song-and-dance interlude, proving how unnecessary it really is and how easy to duplicate (in fact, improve upon) with dolls."[9] Patterson was art director on Stand Up and Cheer! (1934), and designed costumes and dance sets for Bottoms Up (1934). He also designed scenes and costumes for other films such as the Bob Hope and Martha Raye vehicle, Give Me a Sailor (1938). He designed Shirley Temple's wardrobe for her film, Baby, Take a Bow (1934).

Russell Patterson's Mamie (December 13, 1953)

Comic strips

[edit]

In 1929 Patterson began illustrating Sunday newspaper magazine cover series for the Hearst chain. Among the series was "Runaway Ruth" (1929),[10] "Wings of Love" (1929–30),[11] "Get-Your-Man Gloria" (c.1932), "The Countess & the Cowboy" (c. 1932), and "Carolyn's Cadet" (c. 1932). Each series ran for several months, and Patterson produced these on a semi-regular basis until 1933.

Patterson returned to the newspaper fold as the 1940s approached. He collaborated with writers Carolyn Wells and Percy Shaw on several series for the American Weekly Hearst Sunday magazine, all featuring the character Flossy Frills.[12] These full-page works ran as front covers on the magazine from late 1939 to 1943 or after. Patterson's was perhaps the very last Sunday magazine comic strip series produced. From 1942-46 he produced a Sunday and daily panel cartoon series for Hearst's King Features Syndicate titled "Pin-Up Girls".[13]

In 1951, Patterson created the cartoon Mamie, a Sunday page for United Feature Syndicate. Mamie was part of a revival of the glamorous "dumb blonde" in comics, in the movies and on the stage.[14] The strip's beautiful lead was lovingly rendered, as was the New York City setting. Patterson added a panel of paper dolls to many of these Sunday comics. Maurice Horn called Mamie an "elegantly drawn, exquisitely composed page", but with "thin" humor, "a flapper strip that had somehow wandered into the wrong decade." Still, it ran until 1956 on the strength of Patterson's art and fashion-sense.[3]

During the 1960s, arthritis began to limit his ability to draw. Patterson began mentoring younger artists as a faculty member of the National Institute of Art and Design.

Legacy and awards

[edit]
"Where there's smoke there's fire" by Russell Patterson, an example of the "girl-goddess" that influenced many artists.

Coulton Waugh gives much of the credit for the "creation of the lithe, full-breasted, long-legged American girl-goddess" to Patterson. Waugh notes Don Flowers' statement that his being an "ardent admirer" of Patterson should be readily apparent in his work.[15][page needed] Flapper specialist Ethel Hays is also numbered among cartoonists influenced by Patterson, and[14] E. Simms Campbell actually became a "girlie" cartoonist upon Russell Patterson's personal advice. Milton Caniff himself said that Patterson held a "king-pin place among illustrators," and also said that it was Patterson who best defined the "strut and fret" of American life between the two World Wars.[1] Armando Mendez concludes that "it can be said with confidence that Patterson's trademark girl touched virtually every girlie comic artist working between 1930 and 1960."[1]

A beauty expert, Patterson judged Miss America contests from 1927 to 1945 and Miss Universe pageants from 1960 through 1963. A well-known costumer and fashion designer, he contributed ideas in the early 1940s for the uniform of the fledgling Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.[16] He served as president of the National Cartoonist Society from 1952 to 1953. Patterson received the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising and Illustration Award for 1957 and the Elzie Segar Award in 1974. His fame and reputation were such that his endorsements of Medaglia D'Oro coffee, Rheingold Beer, and Lord Calvert whiskey were trumpeted in magazine advertisements.[17]

Russell Patterson died in Atlantic City of heart failure on March 17, 1977, as the Delaware Art Museum was preparing the first significant retrospective of his work. In 2006, Fantagraphics published Top Hats and Flappers: The Art of Russell Patterson, edited by Shane Glines and Alex Chun, with a foreword by Armando Mendez. He was honored posthumously as a Society of Illustrators 2007 Hall of Fame Inductee.

References

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[edit]
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Russell Patterson

View on Grokipedia
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Russell Patterson (December 26, 1893 – March 17, 1977) was an American illustrator, cartoonist, and scenic designer known for his Art Deco magazine illustrations that popularized the glamorous flapper image and defined Jazz Age fashion during the 1920s and 1930s. His elegant, realistic depictions of stylish young women—often called the "Patterson Girl"—featured elongated forms, fashionable clothing details like raccoon coats and unbuckled galoshes, and sophisticated pen-and-ink techniques influenced by French artists, setting trends in publications such as College Humor, Life, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Cosmopolitan. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Montreal, Patterson briefly studied architecture at McGill University before training at the Art Institute of Chicago and spending time in France absorbing European fashion illustration styles. After returning to the United States, he rose to prominence in New York City in the mid-1920s, contributing to major magazines, advertising campaigns, and comic strips while earning acclaim for his ability to capture the era's sophisticated glamour. His versatile career extended to Broadway and Hollywood set and costume design, including work on Ziegfeld Follies revues and movie musicals, as well as designing uniforms for the Women's Army Corps during World War II, department store interiors, and later commercial ventures such as clothing lines and amusement parks. Patterson's influential work bridged illustration, fashion, theater, and design across five decades, making him a key figure in shaping the visual culture of early 20th-century America.

Early life and education

Childhood and family background

Russell Patterson was born on December 26, 1893, in Omaha, Nebraska, to William Francis Patterson and Kathleen Patterson. In 1894, when he was less than one year old, his family relocated to Montreal, Canada, where he was raised and spent his childhood and youth. This extended residence in Montreal from infancy through his teenage years provided his early environment in a bilingual Canadian setting. Little additional detail survives about his family origins or early home life beyond the move north and his parents' names, though the Canadian upbringing exposed him to cultural influences that shaped his later initial cartooning efforts in Montreal. He remained in Montreal until 1914, when he moved to Chicago as a young adult.

Education and early training

Russell Patterson's artistic education began with brief studies in architecture at McGill University in Montreal. After leaving McGill, he started his cartooning career in Montreal newspapers, creating the comic strip Pierre et Pierrette for La Patrie. After an unsuccessful attempt to join the Canadian army in 1914, he moved to Chicago, where he intermittently attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1916 to 1919. In Chicago, he worked as a catalog illustrator and created interior and window displays for department stores including Carson Pirie Scott & Company and Marshall Field's. From 1920 to 1922, Patterson lived in Paris, where he studied painting, attended life-drawing classes, and painted oils. During this period, he resided in areas near Claude Monet. After returning to the United States, from 1922 to 1925 he distributed the mail-order art instruction course "The Last Word in Humorous Illustrations." In 1924, he traveled to the Southwestern United States in an effort to pursue a career in fine art. These varied experiences in formal study, commercial work, and independent artistic exploration shaped his early development before his relocation to New York.

Illustration career

Breakthrough in New York

In 1925, Russell Patterson relocated to New York City at the age of 32, marking a pivotal turning point in his career. Having previously pursued fine art ambitions and trained in Chicago and Paris, he set aside those aspirations upon arrival and redirected his talents toward commercial illustration. He quickly achieved initial success by contributing illustrations to College Humor and Judge magazines, where he depicted stylish, vivacious young women reflective of the Jazz Age. This work gave rise to the "Patterson Girl," an influential archetype of the modern, sophisticated flapper that captured the era's spirit and soon gained widespread recognition, often compared to the earlier Gibson Girl in cultural impact. Within a couple of years, Patterson rose from relative obscurity to celebrity status as an illustrator in New York.

Magazine work and style

Russell Patterson's mature illustration career centered on contributions to leading American magazines during the 1920s and 1930s, where his work appeared in Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Photoplay, Redbook, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. His distinctive Art Deco style featured elegant, stylized depictions of modern women, often embodying the flapper archetype with sleek lines, bold patterns, and sophisticated poses. These illustrations played a significant role in shaping and popularizing the flapper fashion aesthetic of the 1920s and 1930s, influencing trends in women's clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics by presenting glamorous, liberated images that captured the era's cultural shift toward modernity and freedom. Patterson's slick, sophisticated drawings effectively created many of the defining looks associated with the flapper and collegiate eras, helping to establish visual standards for contemporary feminine style. Beyond periodical work, Patterson produced notable large-scale promotional illustrations, including the whimsical Art Deco pictorial map "A Map of New York," commissioned by R.H. Macy & Co. as a promotional piece tied to the 1939 New York World's Fair. This offset lithograph presented a stylized, illustrative view of the city, blending humor and elegance in keeping with his characteristic approach.

Cartooning and comic strips

Newspaper and syndicate series

Russell Patterson transitioned his illustration talents into syndicated newspaper features with a series of romantic serials for Hearst's Sunday magazine covers from 1929 to 1933. These included Runaway Ruth in 1929, Wings of Love spanning 1929 to 1930, Get-Your-Man Gloria around 1932, The Countess & the Cowboy around 1932, and Carolyn's Cadet around 1932. Each serial typically unfolded over multiple weeks, presenting light adventure and romance stories illustrated in his elegant, stylized manner that echoed his magazine work. He later developed the Flossy Frills series for the American Weekly, running from the late 1930s through at least 1943. This humorous feature presented illustrated vignettes of a fashionable young woman, often with accompanying verses by poets such as Carolyn Wells in the 1941 New Adventures of Flossy Frills run and Percy Shaw in the 1942 Flossy Frills Helps Out and 1943 Flossy Frills Does Her Bit sequences. During World War II, Patterson created the single-panel Pin-Up Girls series for King Features Syndicate from 1942 to 1946, showcasing glamorous women in witty, pin-up inspired scenarios. His final syndicated effort was the Sunday page Mamie for United Feature Syndicate, produced from 1951 to 1956. The strip centered on an elegant blonde character navigating light-hearted situations in New York City, frequently incorporating "Mamie Models" paper doll panels, and stood out for its graceful, lovingly rendered artwork though the humor remained relatively thin.

Scenic design for stage

Broadway productions

Russell Patterson was active on Broadway during the 1930s, where he contributed as a costume designer, scenic designer, and in one instance as a director for several musical revues and productions. His Broadway design credits began with costume design for The Gang's All Here in 1931. He expanded his role for Ballyhoo of 1932 in 1932, serving as director, scenic designer, and costume designer. In 1933, Patterson handled both scenic design and costume design for Hold Your Horses. The following year, he provided scenic design for Fools Rush In in 1934 and costume design for Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. He also served as scenic designer for George White's Scandals in 1936 (which opened in late 1935). His final Broadway credit was curtain design for The Illustrators' Show in 1936. These productions reflected the elaborate visual style typical of the era's revues, aligning with Patterson's illustrative background.

Film and television contributions

Hollywood credits

Russell Patterson contributed to several Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1950, applying his skills in illustration, scenic design, and costume creation to various productions. His work in film often reflected his background in stage design, translating theatrical flair to the screen in roles such as art director, set designer, and costume designer. In 1934, Patterson served as art director on the Fox musical feature Stand Up and Cheer! That same year, he designed the dance sets for Bottoms Up, also a Fox production. He additionally created costumes for child star Shirley Temple in the feature Baby, Take a Bow (1934). Patterson appeared as himself in the 1937 Paramount musical Artists and Models, where he supplied the production with his signature "Personettes"—lifelike marionettes that featured prominently in the film's sequences. In 1938, he designed scenes and costumes for the Bob Hope comedy feature Give Me a Sailor. Later in his career, Patterson worked on the 1950 short film Pin-Up Girl, for which he served as set designer and scenario writer. This project aligned with his longstanding interest in pin-up art and illustration.

Other media work

Russell Patterson's involvement in television was limited to a single contribution, providing settings for one episode of the variety program The Morey Amsterdam Show in 1949. This work drew on his established expertise in scenic design but did not lead to further television projects, underscoring the minimal extent of his activity in the medium. Beyond this behind-the-scenes role, Patterson's other media appearances were sparse, including a brief on-screen part in the film Artists and Models.

Later years and recognition

Beauty pageant judging

Russell Patterson's reputation as an illustrator renowned for his glamorous depictions of women, particularly the stylish flapper and modern feminine archetypes, established him as an expert on beauty standards. This expertise led to his appointment as a judge for the Miss America pageant, where he served continuously from 1927 to 1945. His role capitalized on his artistic insight into feminine aesthetics, drawn from decades of creating idealized images of women in magazines, cartoons, and advertisements. Later in his career, Patterson extended his pageant judging experience to the international stage, serving as a judge for the Miss Universe pageants from 1960 to 1963. This involvement aligned with his longstanding focus on beauty ideals through visual art.

Awards and honors

Russell Patterson was honored by leading organizations in cartooning and illustration for his influential work as a cartoonist and illustrator. He served as president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1952 to 1953, having earlier been elected vice president at the organization's founding in 1946. In 1957, Patterson received the National Cartoonists Society Advertising and Illustration Award for excellence in that category. He was further recognized by the National Cartoonists Society with the Elzie Segar Award in 1975, presented for substantial contributions to the profession of cartooning.

Death

Russell Patterson died of heart failure on March 17, 1977, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. At the time of his death, the Delaware Art Museum was preparing a major retrospective exhibition of his work.

References

  1. https://societyillustrators.org/award-winners/russell-patterson/
  2. https://emuseum.delart.org/people/547/russell-patterson
  3. http://rcharvey.com/hindsight/patterson.html
  4. https://www.gratzgallery.com/artists/russell-patterson/
  5. http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2011/11/ink-slinger-profiles-russell-patterson.html
  6. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/p/patterson_russell.htm
  7. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/19/archives/russell-patterson-is-dead-at-82-set-the-fashions-for-flapper-era.html
  8. https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/nycworldsfair-patterson-1939
  9. https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/russell-patterson-1893-1977-a-map-of-new-york._6454abc8f1
  10. http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2010/06/obscurity-of-day-runaway-ruth.html
  11. https://comicstriphistory.com/2019/01/the-hearst-sunday-newspaper-magazine_16.html
  12. http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2018/08/hearsts-american-weekly-cover-index_15.html
  13. https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/comic-strip-art/russell-patterson-pin-up-girls-daily-single-panel-comic-original-art-dated-10-24-44-king-features/a/122101-11504.s
  14. https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/238336/MAMIE-1951-SUNDAY-PAGE-ORIGINAL-ART-BY-RUSSELL-PATTERSON
  15. https://playbill.com/person/russell-patterson-vault-0000019693
  16. https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Russell-Patterson/
  17. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/russell-patterson-15843
  18. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0666390/
  19. https://www.nytimes.com/1937/08/05/archives/the-screen-artists-and-models-which-opened-yesterday-at-the.html
  20. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35968043/
  21. https://archive.org/details/17784pinupgirlsvwr
  22. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040042/fullcredits/
  23. https://travsd.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/russell-patterson-helped-invent-the-flapper/
  24. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0666390/bio/
  25. https://nationalcartoonists.com/about/
  26. https://nationalcartoonists.com/awards/division-awards/
  27. https://nationalcartoonists.com/awards/other-awards/
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