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 the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

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 Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

and

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

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, skeletal Muscle, muscle tissue of vertebrates in general and in almost all mammals. Myoglobin is distantly related to hemoglobin. Compar ...

Early life and education

Geis was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, 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, making it the 16th-most populous city in South Carolina. It is one of the principal cities in the Gree ...

for a time. He studied architecture at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

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

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1929. From there he attended the

University of South Carolina The University of South Carolina (USC, SC, or Carolina) is a Public university, public research university in Columbia, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1801 as South Carolina College, It is the flagship of the University of South Car ...

from 1932 to 1933, graduating with a degree in design and painting in the midst of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

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 complicate ...

of many biochemical books that were written by Albert Lehninger and Richard E. Dickerson, as well as the book ''

How to Lie with Statistics ''How to Lie with Statistics'' is a book written by Darrell Huff in 1954, presenting an introduction to statistics for the general reader. Not a statistician, Huff was a journalist who wrote many how-to articles as a freelancer. The book is a ...

'' by

Darrell Huff Darrell Huff (July 15, 1913 – June 27, 2001) was an American writer, and is best known as the author of '' How to Lie with Statistics'' (1954), the best-selling statistics book of the second half of the twentieth century. Career Huff was ...

. He was a frequent contributor to ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

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

Edgar Bergen Edgar John Bergen (né Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, comedian, actor, vaudevillian and radio performer. He was best known for his characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Bergen ...

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, which is overseen by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). This structural data is obtained a ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Geis, Irving 1908 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American illustrators American scientific illustrators Georgia Tech alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Design alumni University of South Carolina alumni Artists from New York City