Artist Profile: Emmett Watson (1893 — 1955)


From the Springville Museum of Art’s bio of Emmett Watson:

“Emmett St. Clair Watson, Jr., was born in Richmond, Virginia. At age thirteen, Watson began working full-time at a local engraving company that produced advertising. By 1910 he was a staff artist at the company.

Watson served as a cartographer in the U.S. Army during WWI. He was stationed in France, after which he moved to New York City to open his own art studio. His first published assignments were line drawings for advertising and interior story illustrations. While living in New York, he married Marguerite Elliot.

By 1928 Watson was painting covers for slick magazines. Following the stock market crash, Emmett Watson was reduced to lower-paying freelance assignments in the pulp magazines. However, his work for the pulps was masterful. His confident drawing style, bold compositions, and joyous color schemes were very influential.

As the economy grew stronger, Watson was able to leave the pulps behind and return to the higher-paying magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Progressive Farmer. He created several patriotic posters for WWII, and after the war he produced hunting and sporting illustrations for calendars, advertising, and magazines. Emmett Watson died of a heart attack at age sixty-two on May 7, 1955 in New Canaan, Connecticut.”

Here are a few examples of Watson’s work:

2 masksArgosyclue of the walking dogDetective Fiction Weeklydown in alabamfinger of doomhhhh2kill the umpireLifemurderroom 913

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