Born in Alton, New York, Cyrus Leroy Baldridge became a noted illustrator, set designer, and painter of Southwestern desert and mountain landscapes. During his childhood, his family moved frequently, but he received art training from age ten, first studying with famous newspaper illustrator Frank Holme. He earned a degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago and then took a commercial art job as a field artist during World War I. He began sketching at the battle fronts of World War I, first as a freelance artist and then for Stars & Stripes. After the war, he traveled across three continents, spending time in Africa, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Middle East and Europe. He illustrated numerous books, including those of his wife, Caroline Singer. His works range from sketches and engravings to watercolors and portraits of the famous.
Baldridge was quite well-known as an illustrator and his drawings of Africa and Asia frequently appeared in newspapers. In the 1920s, he and his wife traveled widely including to the Far East, Afghanistan, Persia, and Africa, and these cultures became the subjects of many of his illustrations. After 1932, he lived in the United States and continued to illustrate books, and also designed stage sets and wrote his autobiography. During the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, he incorporated Southwestern subjects as themes, and in 1952 settled permanently in Santa Fe, where he worked for two decades painting the landscape in oil and watercolor.
Among the books for which he provided illustrations were Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge, "I was there" with the Yanks on the western front, 1917-1919, together with verses by Hilmar R. Baukhage. With a new introd. for the Garland ed. by Charles Chatfield. 1972; Time and Chance (Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1947), Baldridge's autobiographical account of his trip around the world, in which he illustrated dozens of scenes and incidents, may be the best place to start learning about Baldridge. See also his illustrations to Arna Wendell Bontemps, Chariot in the sky : a story of the Jubilee Singers (1951); James Fenimore Cooper, Spy (1942); Esther Daniels Horner, Jungles ahead! With drawings by Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge (1959); She Lao, Rickshaw boy, by Lau Shaw [pseud.] Tr. from the Chinese by Evan King [pseud.] Sketches by Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge. (1945); Caroline Singer, Half the world is Isfahan (1936) and Boomba lives in Africa, by Caroline Singer and Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge (1935). [Adopted from AskART.com]
|
|
