Glenn C. Sheffer American Illustrator 'Browsing'
About Glenn C. Sheffer (1881-1948)

Born in Kendallville, Indiana, Sheffer was a successful artist and illustrator of whom very little biographical detail is known. Academically a product of the Art Institute and the Art Academy of Chicago, his further studies were largely self-conducted, though materially assisted by such masters as Hans Larvin of Vienna, Albert Gartmann of Berlin and Walter Goldbeck of New York. He lived and died in Chicago where he was a president of the Palette and Chisel Club of Chicago, and also a member of the Painters and Sculptors club. He is best known for producing a famous poster advertising the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, copies of which are highly sought after today. He produced numerous illustrations for the magazines of the day and worked for publications by the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

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£6,750

I hadn’t realised before researching this painting of Capri that the island was known as such a bohemian colony of artists and writers. The creative elite had been holidaying or living there since the mid-nineteenth century and by the beginning of the next century it had become a relative safe-haven for the gay and lesbian community. In 1928, Compton Mackenzie wrote ‘Extraordinary Women’, a satirical presentation of the island's lesbian colony, inspired by the affairs of American painter Romaine Brooks. Sheffer’s work is presumably an illustration intended for publication in a mainstream magazine. I wonder then how knowing his public would have been about the two ladies walking arm in arm in the background, innocent enough for the times but in the context of what sophisticated society knew of 1920s Capri? Perhaps the earliest LGBT+ referenced painting we’ve yet had at P & H……

About Glenn C. Sheffer (1881-1948)

Born in Kendallville, Indiana, Sheffer was a successful artist and illustrator of whom very little biographical detail is known. Academically a product of the Art Institute and the Art Academy of Chicago, his further studies were largely self-conducted, though materially assisted by such masters as Hans Larvin of Vienna, Albert Gartmann of Berlin and Walter Goldbeck of New York. He lived and died in Chicago where he was a president of the Palette and Chisel Club of Chicago, and also a member of the Painters and Sculptors club. He is best known for producing a famous poster advertising the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, copies of which are highly sought after today. He produced numerous illustrations for the magazines of the day and worked for publications by the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.