Description
Sporting Wear shows a young man in a brown wool pin striped suit, with wide lapels and cuffs. The outfit is accessorized with a bowler hat, kid gloves, and a cane, and he also wears shoes with spats. He has a cigarette in his mouth and a shot glass in his hand. A vignette illustration in the upper third of the background shows a couple in English riding gear on horseback in an autumn landscape. Presumably the lower portion was left blank for the addition of advertising copy or text.
Edmund Magrath was an American portrait painter and fashion illustrator based in East Orange, New Jersey. Born in Massachusetts, he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Rhode Island School of Design. By the age of 22 he had an exclusive contract with the Sherman & Bryan ad agency, which promoted him to the clothing trade as “pre-eminently the master of a life-and-blood technique. He draws MEN, not manikins. You almost expect them to step down from the canvas with hand outstretched and a quip on the lip, so natural do they look. None of your spineless, nerveless, boneless, bloodless, ‘fashion plates.'” In 1915, a printing trade publication, The Inland Printer, listed McGrath as among “the most skilled and highest salaried artists in the profession” of fashion illustration. In the 1910s, he illustrated high-end full color style booklets distributed to clients of Baltimore clothier Strouse & Brothers; these included a section on historical fashions and another on current styles of men and young men’s clothing. Magrath’s portraits were commissioned by numerous corporate and institutional clients including Bell Telephone, Prudential Insurance, Fireman’s Insurance Company, the New York Board of Trade, New York City Hall Library and Wright Aeronautical. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club and the American Artists Professional League, which awarded him a citation in 1955.
Condition: Oil on canvas, on a wooden stretcher, unframed. Each generally very good, with the usual overall light toning, handling, wear. Formal Wear with publisher’s margin notes.
References:
Gilbert, Dorothy B., ed. Who’s Who in American Art. New York: American Federation of Arts and R.R. Bowker, 1959. p. 363.
The Clothier and Furnisher. Vol. 71. 1907, p. 41. Online at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=vSFbAAAAYAAJ (30 August 2017).
The Inland Printer. Vol. 54. 1915. p. 83. Online at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=2x9bAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA83 (30 August 2017).
