Harry Devlin (March 22, 1918 – November 25, 2001) was an artist and a painter who also worked as a cartoonist for magazines such as '' Collier's''. His work won him the National Cartoonist Society Advertising and Illustration Award for 1956, 1962, and 1963, their Illustration Award for 1977 and 1978, and their Magazine and Book Illustration Award for 1990. Devlin, and his wife Wende, were residents of

Mountainside, New Jersey Mountainside is a borough in Union County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 Un ...

.Horner, Shirley
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The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', October 3, 1993. Accessed December 19, 2007. "Previous recipients of the award, which has come to be known as the Michael, include Mary Higgins Clark of Saddle River, Belva Plain of Short Hills, Wende and Harry Devlin of Mountainside, the Nobel laureate Dr. Arno Penzias of Highland Park and Gay Talese of Ocean City."

Biography

Harry Devlin was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was the second son of Harry G. and Amelia Crawford Devlin. The Devlins first settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1922, where Devlin attended Thomas Jefferson High School. In 1935, he entered Syracuse University to major in illustration, despite his family's encouragement of a career in medicine. In Devlin's senior year he met Dorothy Wende, a junior from Buffalo, New York majoring in Fine Arts. Dorothy is a distinguished portrait and still life painter, poet and children's book author. In 1939, Harry graduated from Syracuse and moved to a studio in New York City. Harry Devlin married Dorothy Wende in 1941. Harry and Dorothy moved to

in 1950, where the couple raised their seven children. Devlin has been focusing on Victorian Architecture for more than 30 years. There are shows by Harry Devlin at the Morris Museum including a sizable show of children's book illustrations, most of which are in collaboration with his wife, Wende.VIVIEN RAYNOR. "ART; Urban-Suburban Scenes and Unlikely Shapes." ''

'', (27 Jan. 1991): 16. Devlin died on November 25, 2001 at the age of 83. One of his children is artist

Alexandra Eldridge Alexandra Eldridge (born 1948) is an American contemporary painter. Her mixed-media paintings have been acclaimed for their symbolic imagery, rich colors, textures, and devotion to the written word. Early years Alexandra Eldridge was born in M ...

, who also became a painter.

Career

Devlin started his career primarily in magazine illustration. After the beginning of World War II, he began his active duty in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

as an

ensign An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be diffe ...

, where he was assigned to the Identification and Characteristics Office of

Naval Intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

. There he assumed responsibility for all illustrations and technical drawings published in manuals that were used by U.S. fliers to identify enemy planes. He was so proficient that by 1945, he had illustrated all Japanese, German, and Italian aircraft. Rising to the rank of

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Devlin returned to a private life and began a ten-year association with

Collier's Weekly ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Colli ...

. He created editorial cartoons and illustrations for the magazine’s advertisements and articles. Furthermore, his work also appeared in other publications including the Saturday Home Magazine and the New York Daily News. During the

McCarthy era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

, after refusing to design a pro-McCarthy cartoon, he was fired from these publications. It was during the 1950s, a period of political uncertainty and the concurrent decline of illustration that Devlin developed a comic strip carried in local papers, the

Newark Evening News The ''Newark Evening News'' was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. As New Jersey's largest city, Newark played a major role in New Jersey's journalistic history. At its apex, ''The News'' was widely regarded as the newspaper ...

and the Elizabeth Daily Journal, and syndicated in newspapers as far west as

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

. Moreover, Devlin began painting portraits and

Victorian architecture Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...

. In a collaboration with his wife Dorothy (known as Wende), the couple produced more than two dozen children's books featuring Wende's imaginative writing accompanied by Devlin's colorful and energetic illustrations. The first of these children’s books was ''Old Black Witch'' (1963), a story, along with its two sequels, has sold almost two million copies. Harry and Wende Devlin made a comic strip ''Fullhouse'' (later retitled to ''Raggmopp''), which ran between 1954 and 1957. Afterwards Devlin proceeded to renew a long-standing interest in

where he published ''To Grandfather's House We Go'' (1967), containing illustrations after paintings he had begun as early as 1954. The clarity of the descriptions and illustrations of architecture made the work not only an educational children's book but also a source book for college courses in architectural history. Devlin published ''What Kind of a House Is That?'' shortly after, and in 1989 came his major volume on the subject, ''Portraits of American Architecture: Monuments to a Romantic Mood'', 1830-1900. Devlin's style results from a technique very similar to contemporary photo-realism as is evident in ‘’Off the Yellow Brick Road’’ (1989). He alters slide images to define his basic composition, but incorporates "high truths" in the form of the removal of offending modern incursions such as telephone poles to infuse a sense of nostalgia and mood. Today, Devlin's works can be found in several New Jersey private, corporate, and museum collections including the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum and the

Morris Museum of Art The Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia was established in 1985 as a non-profit foundation by William S. Morris III, publisher of The Augusta Chronicle, in memory of his parents, as the first museum dedicated to the collection and exhibition ...

.Mitnick, Barbara J. "Devlin, Harry", ''Encyclopedia of New Jersey.'' Maxine N. Lurie & Marc Mappen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2004 pg 205.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devlin, Harry 1918 births 2001 deaths American cartoonists 20th-century American painters American comics artists Artists from Elizabeth, New Jersey Artists from Jersey City, New Jersey People from Mountainside, New Jersey Thomas Jefferson High School (New Jersey) alumni United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy officers Military personnel from New Jersey

Biography

Career

Further reading

References