Irving Geis (October 18, 1908 – July 22, 1997) was an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...

who worked closely with

biologists A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize in ...

. Geis's hand-drawn work depicts many structures of biological macromolecules, such as DNA and

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respon ...

s, including the first crystal structure of sperm whale

myoglobin Myoglobin (symbol Mb or MB) is an iron- and oxygen-binding protein found in the cardiac and skeletal muscle tissue of vertebrates in general and in almost all mammals. Myoglobin is distantly related to hemoglobin. Compared to hemoglobin, myoglobi ...

Early life and education

Geis was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, and lived in

Anderson, South Carolina Anderson is a city in and the county seat of Anderson County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 28,106 at the 2020 census, and the city was the center of an urbanized area of 75,702. It is one of the principal cities in the Green ...

for a time. He studied architecture at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part o ...

from 1925 to 1927, and went on to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

in 1929. From there he attended the University of South Carolina from 1932 to 1933, graduating with a degree in design and painting in the midst of the great depression.

Career

Geis served as a coauthor and

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

of many biochemical books that were written by Albert Lehninger and Richard E. Dickerson, as well as the book '' How to Lie with Statistics'' by Darrell Huff. He was a frequent contributor to ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

''. In addition to his technical illustrations, Geis created the prototype Charley McCarthy puppet for puppeteer

Edgar Bergen Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters C ...

References

External links

A Gallery for Irving Geis
by Kristin Leutwyler.
Geis Digital Archive
by the educational portal of the

Protein Data Bank The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a database for the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. The data, typically obtained by X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, or, increasingly, c ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Geis, Irving 1908 births 1997 deaths American illustrators Scientific illustrators Georgia Tech alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Design alumni University of South Carolina alumni