Young Woman on a Veranda

Regarded as one of the most influential poster artists in America, Edward Penfield joined the publishing house Harper and Brothers at the age of twenty-five as a staff artist and editor. Shortly after his promotion to artistic director, Penfield created his first lithograph for Harper’s Magazine in 1893. Following its runaway success, he made posters advertising each successive issue of the magazine for over seven years. Magazine readers and poster collectors celebrated his designs for their boldness, abstraction, and occasional comic touch. Penfield also created advertisements and cover designs for books published by Harper and Brothers.

As the most acclaimed artist working for Harper’s, Penfield was free to experiment with avant-garde styles. Less concerned with the dramatic curving lines of Art Nouveau than his contemporaries, Penfield synthesized a number of stylistic sources in his work, including Japanese ukiyo-e prints and posters made by contemporary French and British artists. Penfield’s work for Harper’s displays a late nineteenth-century American type—the wealthy and well-appointed middle-class individual enjoying leisure time. Penfield himself was part of this newly emerging middle class.


This richly colored poster design exemplifies Penfield’s meticulous artistic process, as described by his son Walker: "After a preliminary sketch fixed the subject and layout, he would make a master drawing in black ink with pen and brush, mostly the latter. He would then color this in with watercolor. The next step would be to lay tracing paper over this master drawing, using a different piece for each color and painting in the appropriate areas in black ink." Penfield worked closely with his printers, spending time in the pressroom blending inks and helping them get the posters as close to his design drawings as possible.