BIOGRAPHY

(1885 or 1887- 1941)

A prolific American illustrator, painter, commercial artist and educator, Charles Archibald MacLellan was born in Trenton, Ontario, Canada, came to Chicago with his parents in about 1892, and died in Wilmington, Delaware, where he had lived since 1910. A follower of Howard Pyle's Brandywine School of Illustration*, MacLellan did about fifty covers for The Saturday Evening Post between 1912 and 1936. He also illustrated covers and articles for numerous other magazines such as Harper's Weekly (January 14, 1911), Collier's (July 4, 1914), The Delineator (February 1915), The Popular Magazine (May 1916), Everybody's Magazine (June 1921), Successful Farming (October 1922), and Modern Priscilla (November 1925). And, he painted pictures to be reproduced as calendars for Rand McNally & Company and did advertising and poster work for Marshall Field and Company, Coca-Cola and others.

His primary medium was oil paint. However, he also briefly worked in stained glass design and engraving (due to the nature of his work as an illustrator and commercial artist he very likely worked in other mediums such as pencil and pen &ink, but no mention, or examples, of those mediums was found in our research). His subjects were portraits, faces, figures, children, women, genre*, allegory, sports, politics, animals, family activities, domestic scenes, social commentary, still life, humor and product advertising subjects such as the Fisk Tire Company and Coca-Cola (see AskART Images). His style was Realism, specifically the Brandywine School of Illustration Art.

MacLellan's art education includes studies at the Art Institute of Chicago (c. 1905 - 1907) and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts ("professional class" in easel painting - 1926). A lecture by Howard Pyle (see AskART) at the AIC is considered to have had a major influence on MacLellan's art; and, it is the reason given for his move to Wilmington, where he could attend Pyle's weekly lectures and obtain further instruction from him.

MacLellan was a charter member of the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts (now Delaware Art Museum) and was on its accessions committee (Chairman 1953 - 1958). He was also a Studio Group teacher (1943 - 1958).

His works were exhibited with the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts (1936 - 1946); The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts* (1944 and 1949); the Pasadena Art Institute [now Norton Simon Museum], California (1946); and the Terry Art Institute, Coral Gables, Florida (1952).

His works are in the collections of the Brandywine River Museum of Art (Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania), the Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington, Delaware), the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain), and The Coca-Cola Company.

Biography courtesy of:

AskArt.com

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APPEARS IN

Magazine Covers / Seniors / Women / $50,000 - $100,000 / Saturday Evening Post Covers / Children / Dark/Somber / 1910s / School/Education / Family / $100 - $5,000 / Beach/Summer / Portraits / 1930s / Custom Gicleés Available