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| Cover illustration (1949) by Harry Shenker |
As noted in the text below, WWI American camoufleur Harry Shenker worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for the Farm Credit Administration in the period following World War II. While functioning as art editor of that agency's in-house employee newsletter, called the Grapevine, he sometimes published his own cartoons, such as the cover illustration above from the July 29, 1949 issue.
•••
Harry Shenker was active/lived in Paris, New York
City, Washington DC, Kansas City MO, and Hartford CT. He is known as a
painter, printmaker, sculptor, illustrator and camouflage artist.
Harry
Shenker was born May 8, 1888, in Vilna, Russia, in what is now
Lithuania. His mother Sophia Frances Cabressky died while he was still
an infant. His father, Jacob Shenker, immigrated to the US in 1891. He
was a former commission merchant and real estate man, and was prominent
in the Hebrew community in Hartford CT. Harry emigrated to the US in
1900 (at age twelve), and lived in Hartford with his father and his
stepmother, Sophaia Shenker (whom Jacob had married in 1898).
Federal
employment records indicate that Harry, soon after his arrival, while
still a teenager, was living in Brooklyn NY (possibly with Jacob’s
sister). He studied drawing in New York at the Art Students League in
1903-1905, and at the Art Students League in Hartford from 1905-1910.
While
residing in Hartford, Shenker was a member of the Pickle Club, a social
organization of older members of the Hartford Art League. In 1907 those
members were identified as: Walter O. Eitel, C. Carney, Oscar Anderson,
James Britton, Alfred J. Eaton, William H. Smith, Harry Schenker, Isaac
H. Grant, Thomas Brabazon, Charles Noel Flagg, and James Goodwin
McManus [1].
In 1910, when in his early twenties, he applied for a
passport to study abroad for five years, at locations that included the
École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At that time, he spelled his name as
“Schenker,” not “Shenker.” In the passport application, he describes
himself as 5 feet 9 inches tall, with brown eyes, wide nose, a medium
forehead and short chin. His complexion was dark brown, with brown hair
and a roundish face. He returned to the US in May 1914, sailing from the
port at La Havre, and soon after reapplied (by now, he spelled his name
as “Shenker”) to return to France to study for two additional years.
Like
many artists, Harry Shenker enjoyed painting along the coast of
Brittany, in the vicinity of Locquirec, a strikingly beautiful village
situated around a charming little harbor. According to Alain Levron
(owner of the Loïc de Pors Melleca gallery), “Many painters, seduced by
the beauty of this coast, put their easel there: [among them] Félix
Valloton, Georges Rohner, Harry Shenker, Marius Borgeaud…” [2]. While
painting there and at other locations in France, Shenker enjoyed a
certain measure of success: On federal employment applications, he lists
“$10,000” in annual income while working in that country as an
‘independent contractor and artist.”
He was still living in
France when World War I began in July of 1914. He remained in wartime
Paris, but in 1917, the US also declared war against Germany, with
France, England and Russia as allies. When the US entered the war,
Shenker enlisted in the US Army in Paris, which was officially known at
the time as the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). No doubt because of
his training as an artist, he was assigned to Company B of the 40th
Engineers, known as the American Camouflage Section. It was headed by
Captain Homer Saint-Gaudens, a theatre designer whose father was
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of the most famous sculptors of the time.
As
confirmed by federal employment records (dated 1949), Shenker’s WWI
army service began in August 1917 and ended in October 1919. He lists
his position as “Sergeant, Master Engineer, Senior Grade, 40th
Engineers” and adds that he “had supervision [of] over 2,000 workers in
camouflage work in France for the US Army.” He describes himself as “a
landscape artist,” and requests that he be assigned to “Art and
camouflage work.” At the end of WWI, he received a service citation, and
was honorably discharged on November 30, 1918.
In that same
year, Harry Shenker married a French woman named Marcelle Marie
Dalabardon (born in 1890), who was a portrait artist, sculptor and
still-life painter. It appears that the artists-couple then settled in
France, living on the Brittany Coast (her family lived in Bourg de
Locquirec) and working out of their converted boathouse studio.
The
certificate documenting the marriage of Shenker to Marcelle Dalabardon
includes the signatures of several notable artists/sculptors, including
Edward A. Minazzoli, a student of sculptor James Earl Frazier [3],
architectural painter Albert Fossard, and Louis Biloul, a painter and
art professor at the École des Beaux-Arts [4]. Also signing their
marriage certificate was Captain Elwood Ray Keen, who commanded Company I
of the WWI 40th Engineers Camouflage unit. Shenker was also a friend of
John Storrs, sculpturer and painter who studied under Auguste Rodin
[5][6].
In the fall of 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, it is
believed that the Shenkers were living at Marcelle’s parent’s home in
Locquirec. Soon after, World War II began, with the Germans on the one
side and the British and French on the other. Understandably
apprehensive, it is also recalled that Harry and Marcelle burned and
buried their lifetime works, and departed on a ship to the US on April
25, 1941. In the meantime, in Hartford, Harry’s father died on the
following day.
The US declared war and joined the Allies in World
War II only weeks after Harry’s return from France. He registered for
the draft, but did not serve. Searching for work, he was fortunate to
come to know two men named Verne Hemstreet (whose family he became close
friends with) and B.F. Viehmann. Both men were managers for the Farm
Credit Administration (FCA), a federal agency that began in 1933 as part
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal government reforms.
Through the encouragement of these two acquaintances, Harry Shenker was
hired to work for the FCA, and eventually held long-term positions as a
graphic designer and illustrator for that agency.
Around
1948-1950, Shenker was identified as the Art Editor of a
modestly-printed periodical called the Farm Credit Club Grapevine, which
was an in-house newsletter for FCA employees. The cartoon drawings he
produced for the Grapevine during those post-war years are lively and
refreshing, and may be his most endearing work. Earlier, in the same
newsletter, an account of his wartime experiences in Nazi-occupied
France was published as a fascinating four-page article called "Life
Under Nazi Domination." It is published in the November 18, 1942 issue
[7].
While working for the same agency, Harry Shenker also
offered an informal “art class” for FCA employees, and published various
notes (called "Lessons in Modern Art") in the Grapevine.
Following
the end of WWII, Marcelle Shenker traveled back and forth between the
US and her parents’ home in Locquirec. She was concerned about its
upkeep, as well as wanting to affirm its postwar ownership by her
family. At the conclusion of a long career, Harry Shenker retired in
1965 (at age 77), and he and his wife returned to France. He lived for
another thirteen years. When he died in Paris in 1979, the American
Legion acquired his principal artworks [8].
Notes
[1] Memoirs of the Connecticut Art League, The Hartford Courant Magazine, Sunday April 19, 1948, by John A. Maher.
[2] Bretagne-grandeur-nature. Le Point. Revised 1/17/2007. Accessed at <http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-voyages/2007-01-17/bretagne-grandeur-nature/1088/0/36529>.
[3] The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace. Accessed at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arts_of_War_and_The_Arts_of_Peace>.
[4] Louis-François Biloul. Accessed at <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Fran%C3%A7ois_Biloul>.
[5] Archives of American Art, John Henry Bradley Storrs papers, Image name: storjohn00004.tif. Accessed at <https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?damspath=/CollectionsOnline/storjohn/Box_0003/Folder_042>.
[6] John Bradley Storrs. Accessed at <https://www.askart.com/artist/John_Bradley_Storrs/29674/John_Bradley_Storrs.aspx>.
[7] Life Under Domination. S.U. Baxter. The Farm Credit Club Grapevine. 18 November 1942. Volume 1 Number 7. Accessed at <https://archive.org/details/CAT11083488007>.
[8] Harry Shenker à la galerie d'art. © Le Télégramme. 21 July 1998. Accessed at <<http://www.letelegramme.fr/ar/viewarticle1024.php?aaaammjj=19980721&article=4072056&type=ar#cbkkibaUAF7MKMUs.99>.
This biographical entry is comprised of information that was provided by Cathy Hyman of Blythewood SC. It is based on factual data found in various US government documents, in internet research and online newspaper archives, as well as the childhood recollections of the daughter of Verne Hemstreet, who, as a management executive at the Farm Credit Administration, befriended Harry Shenker and his wife Marcelle in the early 1940s and housed them during their most difficult times in Kansas City MO and Washington DC.
A slightly different version of this has also been provided to askART.com.