Aline Fruhauf (1907–1978) was an American

caricaturist A caricaturist is an artist who specializes in drawing caricatures. List of caricaturists * Abed Abdi (born 1942) * Abril Lamarque (1904–1999) * Al Hirschfeld (1903–2003) * Alex Gard (1900–1948) * Alexander Saroukhan (1898–1977) * Alfre ...

and painter known for her various mixed-media caricatures of musicians, the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

justices, and artists such as Stuart Davis,

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Early life Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889, in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi ...

Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...

, and

Raphael Soyer Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in ...

, among others.

Career

Aline Fruhauf's career began early for her as she went from art student to professional caricaturist while still attending Parson's School of Design in New York. Her first caricature appeared in

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 to 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers as a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publisher Jo ...

in 1926, her drawings were featured in New York dailies, and she was given a regular column in

The Morning Telegraph ''The Morning Telegraph'' (1839 – April 10, 1972) (sometimes referred to as the ''New York Morning Telegraph'') was a New York City broadsheet newspaper owned by Moe Annenberg's Cecelia Corporation. It was first published as the ''Sunday Me ...

a year later. She also regularly contributed to the periodical Musical America in 1927. In 1930, she enrolled in The

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

, in order to transition from editorial pieces in newspapers to exhibiting and selling her art in galleries, as a result of the fall of the

Stock Market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange a ...

and the decline of newspaper sales. Aline's first commissioned series were caricatures of legal figures based on satirists

Ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...

and

Spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ''e ...

. This series of New York judges (1934–1936) was the first time she had been on a regular payroll and was getting paid for what she loved to do. One of her most successful pieces from this series of prints was of the

justices, ''The Nine Old Men'' (1936). During the 1930s, Fruhauf was regularly featured in theater and art magazines, like ''Creative Art'' in 1933, for her series of caricatures on artists and art dealers, and later she joined the graphics division of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(WPA)

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

, working there from March to December 1936 and preparing a series of caricatures of the WPA artists that were writing essays for the book ''Art for the Millions''. By doing this, she met emerging New York artists like

and Stuart Davis. In 1944, Aline and her husband, Dr. Erwin Vollmer, moved to Bethesda when he was posted to the Naval Medical Center, and after settling in, she contacted a former lithography classmate and resumed printmaking. In 1950, she was approached by a music critic of

The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the ''Washington'' ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday ...

to do a series of caricatures of a Washington orchestra. This piece became known as "The Face of Music in Washington" and featured 24 paintings of conductors, composers, critics, and musicians displayed at the Dupont Theatre Art Gallery in 1957. In the later part of her career she was honored with solo exhibitions at

The Smithsonian The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trus ...

in 1966, and

The Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran ...

in 1977.

Personal life

Fruhauf was born in 1907 in New York City. In 1934 Aline married Erwin P. Vollmer and they later had two daughters. She died aged 71 on May 27, 1978, in Bethesda, Maryland.

Published work

After Fruhauf's death in 1978, a collection of her caricatures and journal entries were compiled into a memoir titled "Making Faces: Memoirs of a Caricaturist" published in 1987. Most of the journal entries are from the earlier part of her career, but the book contains caricatures from her entire career and art from other artists that Fruhauf worked with.

Papers

Photographs of Fruhauf's work and friends, sketches, letters, clippings, typescripts and exhibition materials are stored in the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

research collection (62 items on 5 partial reels of microfilm) known as "The Aline Fruhauf Papers".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fruhauf, Aline 1907 births 1978 deaths American caricaturists American women caricaturists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters Parsons School of Design alumni Art Students League of New York alumni Federal Art Project artists