The Life And Art Of Mead Schaeffer
(2020 - Illustrated Press)

(by David Apatoff) This 9-by-12-inch volume is just a bit unwieldy at 224 pages. With that said, this publisher's mission seems to be making sure that a featured illustrator's legacy is spotlighted and respected as much as possible in their one book, as there's a good chance that there won't be another one dedicated to that artist for a long, long time. Anyway, this book has 25 pages where multiple images are pulled together and another 179 of them then present large featured reproductions (which includes a number of even larger detail-extracts and some preliminaries). As Schaeffer's career was evolving, he was trusted with lending painted illustrations to many literary classics, such as The Count Of Monte Cristo, King Arthur And His Knights, Les Miserables, Lorna Doone, Moby Dick, Omoo, The Three Muskateers, and Typee. Indeed, those works are captioned with their titles, medium, size and image acknowledgement, but there are many more illustrations here for which the story source was not unearthed and shared, instead providing only a magazine's name & date, where you would so want the title, the art being so evocative. He also produced ads, as well as any number of covers with contemporary subjects (certainly our country's war effort, and the militias, were hugely supported & focused on). When you think "The Golden Age Of Illustration", probably only a handful of the many working artists of the time will come particularly to mind - Schaeffer would be one of those select few. Unfortunately, as I write this, the publisher is sold out and very few copies are on the market (none less than a hundred dollars).