biography of Frank Earl SCHOONOVER (1877-1972)

Birth place: Oxford, NJ

Addresses: Wilmington, DE/Bushkill, PA

Profession: Illustrator, painter, lecturer, teacher, writer,

Studied: Drexel Inst., 1896-97, with Howard Pyle.

Exhibited: AIC, 1913; PAFA Ann., 1913

Member: SI, 1905; fellow, PAFA; Wilmington SFA.

Work: Brown Vocational Sch., Wilmington; Wilmington SFA

Comments: Best known for his illustrations of Native Americans and mountain men of the West in Scribner's, Harper's, Century, Colliers, and McClures. Schoonover had a studio in Wilmington near Howard Pyle. He made his first trip to the Hudson Bay area in 1903 and was in Mississippi in 1911. In 1919, he painted WWI subjects for Ladies" Home Journal and from 1920-30 he illustrated a series of children's books. In 1930, he began to design stained-glass windows, spent time and painted in Bermuda in 1935; and in 1942, he started his own school. Throughout his career, he maintained chronological daybooks which identify 2,504 illustrations and landscapes.

Sources: WW40; John R. Schoonover, Frank E. Schoonover, Catalogue RaisonnÈ (Wilmington, DE: Schoonover Studios, 2001); Falk, Exh. Record Series.