Prolific pulp cover artist Modest Stein (mentioned in my earlier post on prolific pulp artists) painted professionally well into his 80s. This article, a rare profile of him, mentions his pulp work as well.
OF CONSIDERABLE interest to art lovers, or for that matter to anyone who likes to marvel at human accomplishment is the current exhibit in Bristol of works by one of the country’s most famed octogenarian painters, Modest Stein of New York City, who was 84 last Washington’s Birthday.
Some fruits of a long and travelled art career that unfolded when he came to the U. S. from Lithuania in 1888 are now on display on the main floor of the Bristol Public Library. The exhibit is open to the public throughout this calendar month during library hours, which are: weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Sunday’s, closed. Beginning June 23 the library will close all day Saturdays for the season.
AMONG the group of 13 pictures is Modest Stein’s largest work, an eight by 12-foot mural In oils entitled “Ambition,” which the artist completed only last September at the age of 83. Two paintings bear 1955 dates, two 1954, one 1952. The others were produced earlier. All are oils except five, which are pastels.
Arrangements for the showing were made by Miss Celia T. Critchley, librarian at Bristol, after Stein’s January appearance on the television program, “Life Begins at 80.” She felt that knowledge of the artist’s life, his works and philosophy would be an inspiration to others in or near his age group.
Stein maintains his studio in New York’s Greenwich Village but lives in a Park Avenue apartment with his daughter, an interior decorator, and his son-in-law, an attorney. He hopes to visit Bristol once or twice more while the exhibition is on.
STEIN’S life has been art exciting one, filled with travel, action, history, big news events and contact with the great and near great.
As a Spanish-American War correspondent, he was wounded at San Juan Hill. As a newspaper artist, he has covered all phases of life from high society to New York’s Chinatown, the Bowery, the Dover Street Mission. In 1905 the New York World sent him to Russia to report on the Russo-Japanese War.
He has painted in Hollywood for Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and other studios; has studied in Florence, Italy, and in Paris, France, where one of his pictures was hung in the Luxembourg Museum. He has been a prolific illustrator (more than 1,200 covers) for magazines such as “Detective Story,” “Western Story,” “Adventure,” “Everybody’s”. For years he did all the covers for the Frank A. Munsey publications and for Street and Smith. In recent years he has turned his talents to sculpture.
MODEST STEIN was born Feb 22, 1872, in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, where he was graduated from a classical gymnasium (school). When he arrived in America, he earned his living at odd jobs, worked as a lithographer, painted pictures and finally became a newspaper artist. His first newspaper job was with the New York Press from 1893 to 1896. Later he went to the New York Recorder, back to the Press, then to the New York Herald, where he stayed until 1901. From there he went to the Philadelphia North American before returning to the World.
After his Russian war assignment, he became a free-lance newspaper artist. His work included coverage at many famous trials, among them the Molyneux case, the Nan Patterson case, the Harry K. Thaw case, the Hall-Mills case. Among his assignments, too, were such news events as the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago, the S. S. Slocum disaster, the Standard Oil investigation and political conventions. His beat was from Washington, D. C., to Albany, N. Y.
Sports figures, prominent persons like J. P. Morgan, Hetty Greene, “Teddy” Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller Sr., occupied space in his voluminous sketchbook. Notorious as well as notable figures were equally represented.
Recently Stein completed a series of illustrations entitled “Heroines of Literature,” one of which, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” (from Thomas Hardy’s novel), appears on these pages.
Photos reproduced here were taken at a June 6 open house held at the Bristol library in Stein’s honor.
Given the number of covers Stein painted, I’ll have to update my earlier post. I still don’t think he’ll have painted more covers than Coughlin, but he may run him close.
Many collectors tend to associate Modest Stein with the romance pulps but as this article points out he painted other subjects as well. Thanks for showing us this interesting article.