[Originally appeared in Blue Book, April 1938]
Who’s Who in Blue Book
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He was born in a private car on a railway siding in Minnesota; for his father was an electrical engineer engaged in revising a telegraph system, and his wife traveled with him. . . . Later the family settled in Detroit, and there, Mr. Briggs won a scholarship in an art school that started him on his career as an illustrator. He moved to New York in 1928 and since that time his work has appeared in Collier’s, Pictorial Review and other magazines as well as in Blue Book. He is married and the father of two children—and is a table-tennis expert (heaven help you if he hears you call it ping-pong!) At the left is his own idea of what he looks like.
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He lives at Norwalk, Conn., which was his birthplace. He got his training at the New York School of Art under William M. Chase and Edward Penfield, and was also a pupil of Frederick John. Besides his work as an illustrator he has designed several houses in the early American style, on which he is an authority, and has painted many landscapes. In the field of mural decoration an outstanding example of his work is a panel thirty-four feet long in the New Canaan Town Hall. At present he is assisting in the design of murals for the New York World’s Fair.
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“I was born in 1894 in Cambridge, Mass.,” Mr. Anderson reports. “My parents were born in Finland. My father followed the sea. As a boy, I wanted to do the same, and my first drawings were of ships. I moved to Philadelphia, where I had my art training, and was graduated from the Industrial Arts School, and worked for some of the magazines. Enlisted in an illustrators’ unit—dissected, and drew operations for a year, making a medical history of the war! The armistice was signed, and I’d not got over. Painted some portraits of generals, and came on home, back to work for the magazines. Bought a farm in Chester Co., Penn., but am now located in New York, taking art as a vocation.”
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Everyone calls him Pete, though that is not the name his parents gave him—he’s that kind of fellow. He was born in Emporia, Kansas, out where they raise tall corn and measure their men by the yard—he stands six feet, seven. He was graduated from the University of Missouri as an electrical engineer; and “before he went wrong” (his own phrase) he was a specialist in installing telephone systems. Since he came to New York his drawings and lithographs have won increasing recognition. He is an expert pistol-shot and a candid-camera addict.
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