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Andrew Loomis
(1892-1959)


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(William) Andrew Loomis was born on June 15, 1892, in Syracuse, New York, growing up in Zanesville, Ohio. He was an illustrator, teacher and creator of "how-to-do-books" on drawing and painting for illustrators, like Viking Press publications "Fun with a Pencil," 1939, "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth," 1943, and "Creative Illustration," 1947. In 1951, "Successful Drawing" was published (it re-appeared in 1961 as "Three-Dimensional Drawing"). "Drawing the Head and Hands" was published in 1956. They were all immensely successful. Loomis' last book, "Eye of the Painter and Elements of Beauty," posthumously published in 1961 (he died in 1959), unlike his earlier instruction books, is filled with examples of fine art, but little of his own work.

In 1911, he studied with Frank Vincent Dumond and George Bridgman at the Art Students League, New York City, as well as in 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. Though always inclined toward art as a child, Loomis was set on an artist's career after a visit to the studio of Howard Chandler Christy.

After service during World War I, Loomis was employed in Chicago by the Charles Everett Johnson Advertising Art Studio, later for Bertch and Cooper. Eventually opening his own studio, Loomis produced editorial and advertising illustration, as well as outdoor twenty-four sheet posters. His only cover for "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared in 1935. He taught at the American Academy of Art, in Chicago, in the 1930s.

He was active in Los Angeles in the 1920s and, after many years in Chicago, returned to Los Angeles in the late 1930s. He remained there until his death on May 25, 1959.

His work appears in the book, The Illustrator in America: 1880-1980.

Exhibited: Artists of the SW (LA), 1951; Society of Illustrators of LA, 1954.

Sources:
societyillustrators.org/permanent_collection/loomis.html
bpib.com/illustrat/loomis.html
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Who's Who in American Art 1936-53.