Neysa McMein
Encyclopedia
Life
Born Marjorie Moran in Quincy, IllinoisQuincy, Illinois
Quincy, known as Illinois' "Gem City," is a river city along the Mississippi River and the county seat of Adams County. As of the 2010 census the city held a population of 40,633. The city anchors its own micropolitan area and is the economic and regional hub of West-central Illinois, catering a...
, she attended the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
and in 1913 went to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. After a brief stint as an actress, she turned to commercial art. On the advice of a numerologist, she adopted the name Neysa, and she thereafter credited the name change with her rapid success.
McMein studied at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
for a few months, and in 1914 sold her first drawing to the Boston Star. The next year she sold a cover to the Saturday Evening Post. Her pastel drawings of chic, healthy American girls proved highly popular and brought her many commissions. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
she drew posters for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
governments and spent six months in France as a lecturer and entertainer.
From 1923 through 1937, McMein created all of McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...
covers. She also supplied work to McClure's, Liberty
Liberty (magazine)
Liberty magazine may refer to:* Liberty , a political magazine published from 1881 to 1908 by Benjamin Tucker* Liberty , a general-interest magazine published from 1924 to 1950...
, Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly publication, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s....
, Collier's, Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
, and other magazines. She created advertising graphics for such accounts as Palmolive soap and Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike is a brand of cigarette owned by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and British American Tobacco groups. Often referred to as "Luckies", Lucky Strike was the top selling cigarette in the United States during the 1930s.- History :...
cigarettes. General Mills
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 corporation, primarily concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets many well-known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Pillsbury, Green...
's Marjorie C. Husted commissioned her to create the image of "Betty Crocker
Betty Crocker
Betty Crocker AKA: batter witch is a cultural icon, as well as brand name and trademark of American Fortune 500 corporation General Mills. The name was first developed by the Washburn Crosby Company in 1921 as a way to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. The name Betty was...
", a fictional housewife whose brand name was intended to be a seal of solid middle-class domestic values.
She became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table
Algonquin Round Table
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929...
set, along with Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine and a member of the Algonquin Round Table....
, Alice Duer Miller
Alice Duer Miller
Alice Duer Miller was an American writer and poet.-Biography:Alice Duer was born in New York City on July 28, 1874 into a wealthy family. She was the daughter of James Gore King Duer and Elizabeth Wilson Meads. Elizabeth was the daughter of Orlando Meads of Albany, New York...
, Harpo Marx
Harpo Marx
Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...
, and Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
. Franklin Pierce Adams
Franklin Pierce Adams
Franklin Pierce Adams was an American columnist, well known by his initials F.P.A., and wit, best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances as a regular panelist on radio's Information Please...
, Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
, Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, and Bernard Baruch
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters and became a philanthropist.-Early life...
were friends.
In 1921, McMein was among the first to join the Lucy Stone League
Lucy Stone League
The Lucy Stone League is a women’s rights organization founded in 1921. Its motto is "My name is the symbol of my identity and must not be lost"...
, an organization that fought for women to preserve their birth names after marriage in the manner of Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
.
Together with artists Howard Chandler Christy
Howard Chandler Christy
Howard Chandler Christy was an American artist and illustrator famous for the "Christy Girl", similar to a "Gibson Girl".He was born in Morgan County and attended early school in Duncan Falls, Ohio...
and Harrison Fisher
Harrison Fisher
Harrison Fisher was an American illustrator.Fisher was born in Brooklyn, New York City and began to draw at an early age. Both his father and his grandfather were artists. Fisher spent much of his youth in San Francisco, and studied at the San Francisco Art Association...
, McMein constituted the Motion Picture Classic magazine's, "Fame and Fortune" contest jury of 1921/1922, who discovered the It-girl, Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
.
In 1923 she married John C. Baragwanath, a mining engineer and author. Theirs was an open marriage, and though the proprieties generally were observed, there were exceptions. In his memoirs, the lyricist and publicist Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
recalled hearing that on one occasion, when Neysa noticed that her model for the day was impatient to leave, she asked: "Have you got a heavy date?" Model: "Yes, with a great guy, Jack Baragwanath." Meanwhile, Neysa was involved for several years with the Broadway director George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
, leading her Algonquin Round Table
Algonquin Round Table
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929...
crony Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine and a member of the Algonquin Round Table....
to crack that "we now call Neysa’s place in Port Washington
Port Washington, New York
Port Washington is a hamlet and census-designated place in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the community population was 15,846....
the 'Abbottoir.'"
McMein's more private artistic ambitions lay in the field of portraiture, at first in pastels and later in oil. With the decline in popularity of her style of commercial art in the later 1930s, she turned increasingly to portraiture. Among her subjects were Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
, Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an American author, aviator, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.She was an acclaimed author whose books and articles spanned the genres of poetry to non-fiction, touching upon topics as diverse as youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner was an American writer and journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975. She wrote under the pen name "Genêt"...
, Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...
, Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company...
.
McMein died in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, aged 61.
Film portrayal
McMein was portrayed by actress Rebecca MillerRebecca Miller
Rebecca Augusta Miller is an American film director, screenwriter and actress, most known for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits , The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and Angela,and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee all of which she wrote and directed.-Life and career:Born in Roxbury,...
in the film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a 1994 film scripted by writer/director Alan Rudolph and former Washington Star reporter Randy Sue Coburn...
(1994).
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- Cynthia Gallaher's website on Neysa McMein
- Algonquin Round Table online history
- American Art Archives Gallery
- Curtis Publishing Saturday Evening Post covers
- Nickolas MurayNickolas MurayNickolas Muray was a Hungarian-born American photographer and Olympic fencer.-Biography:...
portraits of Neysa McMein; photo #1, photo #2, photo #3, photo #4