Frederick A. Anderson

Frederick A. Anderson.

Description of Photograph: black and white photograph of Frederick Anderson, bust only, tie and jacket, young representation

      Anderson was born of an old Norwegian sturdy and hardy stock in the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 15, 1891. Almost from the day on which he could take a pencil in hand he was fascinated by and attracted to the artistic means of expression afforded on a flat surface. 

      At the age of thirteen, he moved to Philadelphia, where a few years later he became a matriculate at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art.

      Awarded a scholarship for his promising and meritorious work there, Mr. Anderson became inspired further by the association with men active in all forms of artistic enterprise and began the deep study of antique and modern art. While thus absorbed, his canvasses were accepted by numerous publishers.

      The outbreak of the Great War, instead of disrupting his procession, offered a stimulus for it, particularly in the depiction of the history of the Medical Corps while assigned to duty with the Unit of Medical Illustrators. Almost immediately on his discharge he received the Beck Award at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

and he attained widespread popularity and demand among publishing houses and periodicals.

      Mr. Anderson was also Director of the Art Department of the Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia and to his study came many students for guidance. 

      His travels during his time of directorship were largely limited to his country place, a farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which afforded him opportunities for freedom of expression in working from nature.

      Frederick Anderson's book jackets are well known. His covers for "The Joy Girl," by May Edginton, and "The Silk Coquette," by Edwin Bateman Morris, are particularly lovely. But boys knew him for his illustrations in "Castaway Island," by Perry Newberry, and "The Coach," by Arthur Stanwood Pier. 

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