Mead Schaeffer: The Dark Glamour of Confrontation
By Isabelle Holloway
Over the course of his life, American artist Mead Schaeffer created more than 5,000 illustrations. These illustrations captured American fascinations ranging from Alaskan dogsledding to the political deliberations of Abraham Lincoln, and from journeys on the Chisholm Trail to L.P. Wyman’s Golden Boys navigating downriver log rafts. While illustrating literary classics such as Moby-Dick, Tom Cringle’s Log, and The Count of Monte Cristo, he grew “sick of painting dudes and dandies” and instead sought empirical subjects. It was “something about a real person” that he claimed was most important.
During World War II, Schaeffer created an Armed Forces Commemorative series to stimulate War Bond sales. His research as a war correspondent took him aboard submarines, Coast Guard patrol boats, and aircraft. Beyond his professional work, Schaeffer found solace in fishing, referring to himself as “a full-time angler and a part-time illustrator.” He frequently sought inspiration in the countryside, often joined by his wife or fellow artists like Norman Rockwell.
Schaeffer occasionally ventured into darker, foreign, and more glamorous underworlds. In five exemplary paintings, he transformed the ordinary settings of an alleyway, urban street, Venetian arcade, Chinese tearoom, and gas station into atmospherically charged and dated spaces. Through expressive brushstrokes and bold swathes of color, Schaeffer captured both the allure of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the shadowy tension of the Interwar period in his characters’ confrontations.
Figure 1: Mead Schaeffer, Threesome Hiding in Alley Way, 1922, oil on canvas, 29 x 28 in.
"Quick! To the boat!', cried the woman, as the wounded man slumped against Captain Blood".
Three figures are cast in shadow in In Schaeffer’s Cosmopolitan illustration (fig. 1) for “Blood Money” by Rafael Sabatini. Captain Blood holds his head high with determination, a wounded man slumps wearily against the wall, and a hooded woman looks beyond the frame elusively. The unlit lantern is supplemented by moonlight that glistens across the water; the eerie tableau is saturated with tension. Should they rush to save the wounded man? Are enemies nearby? Confrontations with uncertainty and time parallel the fracturing of light and shadow in Threesome Hiding in Alley Way.
Figure 2: Mead Schaeffer, Closed! Frieder, do you realize what that means, 1932, oil and charcoal on canvas, 34 x 25 in.
A shaded Weimar-era street corner, bathed in blue-white light, is lined with what are likely advertisements. Among them is a theatrical, angelic woman in the upper left-hand corner. Her celestial background detaches her from the solemn figures below. The poise and meticulously styled curls of the foregrounded woman contrast with her subdued, almost despairing expression. Just behind her, the stoicism of the sharply dressed man is compounded by shadow as he looks down at the police officer. The title “Closed! Frieder, do you realize what that means” (fig. 2) underscores the anxiety of the piece — the subtext of authoritarian tension speaks to the sociopolitical setting.
Figure 3: Mead Schaeffer, Forbidden Lover, 1932, oil on canvas, 34 x 32 in.
In Forbidden Lover (fig. 3) for “A Lady’s Home Journal”, a couple in arms hastens under the Venetian arcades. The lady, dressed in a decadent ball gown, wears a mask, giving her a semblance of anonymity. Her partner, in wig and formal ensemble, peers suspiciously at the gondoliers. The nearest gondolier, gripping his oar, reciprocates his distrust. Schaeffer cultivates an air of surveillance and secrecy through this subtle exchange. Twinkling stars and rolling clouds, along with the Ponte Di Rialto and distant canal-side houses, contribute to the juxtaposed tranquility and apprehension.
Figure 4: Mead Schaeffer, Confrontation in a Chinese Tea Room, 1937, oil on canvas, 35 x 28 in.
In Confrontation in a Chinese Tea Room (fig. 4) for American Magazine, three figures dressed in white gather around a white round table — white symbolising both purity and a potential for spoil. The man with his back turned leans forward defensively. To his right, the other man looks down with unrealised frustration. The woman in a trench coat and hat, her lips painted a bright coral, holds herself demurely and looks upon the seated man placidly. The winding furniture and dragon motif on the wallpaper contribute to the kineticism and drama of their discourse.
Figure 5: Mead Schaeffer, The Blue Roadster, 1941, oil on canvas.
In The Blue Roadster for Corey Ford (fig. 5), an elegant woman in a white trench coat faces a backlit man, his hips cocked confidently. Whether she feels fear, indecision, or both, her emotions are palpable. The tension between them clashes, somewhat ironically, with the illustration’s caption in The American Magazine:
“Joe,” she said, “I’ve got to talk to somebody. Can I talk to you?”
The artificial gas-station glow and the whirl of autumn leaves construct a tense image. The blue car acts as a shiny witness to their conversation — its position as the third subject is ultimately consolidated when, at the end of the story, the woman dies in driving accident and Joe, the mechanic, begins to repair it.
Historian Fred Taraba wrote of Schaeffer’s style: “It is the mood that carries the message rather than the overabundance of detail typical of his contemporaries …. if the mood was right, details could remain implied”. In these works, Schaeffer captures the dynamic between the known and unknown — where absence of context becomes part of the narrative. As viewers, we are given the autonomy of determining how to situate the characters. While often lauded as an allAmerican male artist, a reputation shaped, too, by his time as a chronicler of military and sociopolitical life and as a lifelong fisherman, Schaeffer also reveals his introspective, brooding side. He was a man who embraced complexity, beauty in darkness, and the hidden depths and motivations of humanity.
Bibliography
“The Art of the Post: Mead Schaeffer, the Painter of Moods,” Saturday Evening Post, December 2019. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/12/the-art-of-the-post-mead-schaeffer-thepainter-of-moods/.
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“Mead Schaeffer,” Illustration History. https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/meadschaeffer.
“Mead Schaeffer,” American Illustration. https://americanillustration.org/project/meadschaeffer/.
“Mead Schaeffer,” Illustrated Gallery. https://www.illustratedgallery.com/artwork/forsale/artist/mead-schaeffer/.
“Mead Schaeffer Biography,” Curtis Publishing. https://web.archive.org/web/20120604080446/http://www.curtispublishing.com/bios/Schaeffer.s html.
“Mead Schaeffer,” American Illustration. https://americanillustration.org/project/meadschaeffer/.
“Mead Schaeffer, Threesome Hiding in Alley Way,” Artnet. https://www.artnet.com/artists/mead-schaeffer/threesome-hiding-in-alley-wayq22EwvwOhVGgJvm5Sp7SAQ2.
“Mead Schaeffer, Closed! Frieder, Do You Realize What That Means,” Artnet. https://www.artnet.com/artists/mead-schaeffer/closed-frieder-do-you-realize-what-that-meansSQxg2wj95-OMW06zvs4t1A2.
“Mead Schaeffer,” Illustrated Gallery. https://www.illustratedgallery.com/artwork/original/359/by-mead-schaeffer.
“Mead Schaeffer, Forbidden Lover,” Illustration History. https://www.illustrationhistory.org/illustrations/forbidden-lover.
“Mead Schaeffer, Confrontation in a Chinese Tea Room,” Artnet. https://www.artnet.com/artists/mead-schaeffer/confrontation-in-a-chinese-tea-room-illus-forhb1Ulep_thRFs7nPX13mBQ2.
“The Blue Roadster,” Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies. https://rockwellcenter.org/essays-illustration/blue-roadster/.