Next month, during the Ways Garden Art Show, a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker will be placed at the garden honoring Frances Tipton Hunter, a local artist who delighted people during the 1940s with her sweet watercolors of children, some which made it to major magazine covers of the day.
According to an article at saturdayeveningpost.com, “Hunter longed to remember the happiness of her earliest childhood memories, and this remained a constant theme throughout her life’s work.”
Hunter was born in Howard, Centre County. When she was six years old, her mother passed away and her father sent her and her brother to live with relatives in Williamsport, Francis and Edward McIntyre. While here, she attended Williamsport schools.
In an account from a local newspaper at the time, Hunter was recalled as “distinguishing some pretty bad drawings to the Cherry and White (the high school newspaper) and playing unspectacular basketball while she was a student,” according to a recent presentation for the Lycoming County Historical Society’ annual meeting at the Thomas T. Taber Museum by Dana Brigandi, development, marketing and public relations director at the James V. Brown Library.
“After graduation from Williamsport High School, she studied illustration in Philadelphia. And she ended up winning a Wanamaker Department Store prize of $500,” Brigandi said.
She noted that the story of the prize was mentioned in several accounts and researching it further she discovered that the prize which was awarded to Hunter in 1918 is the equivalent of a $10,000 prize today.
“So that’s why it was such a big deal and that’s why everyone kept referencing it,” Brigandi explained.
Hunter then went to New York City to try getting into the magazine field. She was quoted as saying that the “magazines were unimpressed.”
“So she continued to draw countless children’s fashions designed for state department stores until she gained a foothold in women’s magazines,” Brigandi said.
After her health weakened, Hunter returned to Williamsport for a few years and Brigandi recounted that while she was here “she still contributed to big city markets.”
Following this, Hunter continued studying at Philadelphia before becoming a freelance illustrator.
“Her illustration got into print in magazines such as Women’s Home Companion, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and many big journals, too. She did covers for big weekly magazines and her pictures were used extensively in national advertising such as the Firestone Tire Co. Most notably her artwork graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post 18 times during the mid-1930s and 1940s. Her illustrations were said to be in the style of Norman Rockwell.
A newspaper article at the time said that although Hunter “has not had sufficient time to pursue her interest in portrait work, she had a pleasant experience in painting,”
While Hunter lived here, she spent much of her time illustrating the Monroe Leaf book for children, “Boo, Who Used to be Scared of the Dark,” that was published by Random House in 1948.
While Hunter was in Williamsport, Brigandi said, she was a member of the newly-formed Williamsport Art Guild and later served as its president.
“When she began at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia, she knew from the first day that she wanted to be an illustrator,” Brigandi said.
“She explained that her teacher used to say that the difference between an illustrator and other artists was that the artist painted what the eye saw while the illustrator painted the image formed in the mind,” Brigandi stated.
In 1920 Hunter told a Williamsport Sun journalist that “I always have the idea of the child I want to input on paper in my mind and I’m never satisfied until I get that child on paper.”
“Sometimes I destroy half a dozen then because they are not the exact thing I have in my mind for I know that I cannot rest until I have accomplished what I started out to do,” Hunter said.
In 1946, Hunter was approached about illustrating the “Sandy in Trouble” book series which continued for 11 years, Brigandi said. The paintings for the book depicted the everyday troubles of a boy and his dog.
During the city’s Sesquicentennial in 1956, Hunter visited Williamsport and was chosen as one of the first Pennsylvania ambassadors by the State Chamber of Commerce. She also was named a distinguished daughter of Williamsport at that time, according to Brigandi.
Hunter passed away in Philadelphia on March 3, 1957 at the age of 61. She was buried in Howard.
When Hunter died, she gifted the bulk of her work to the library, the Historical Society and the Williamsport Home.
During her presentation, Brigandi shared some interesting anecdotes she found in local newspapers of the day.
“Francis was in town to judge a Williamsport High School Art Contest and donated one of her works to the high school from which she graduated,” Brigandi said.
Another article highlights an exhibit of her work at the James V. Brown Library.
In a Gazette and Bulletin article from 1922, Hunter discussed her commercial success.
“She said the method of reproducing her works was very disappointing,” Brigandi said.
“She said the three methods used for the line method were pen and ink, the halftone method for watercolor drawings and the three or four color process. She noted that the reproduction process is heartbreaking as the finished product is never like the original. This is due to the fact that the many blended colors of an original drawing are so impossible to reproduce,” Brigandi said.
The marker honoring Hunter’s accomplishments will be unveiled during a ceremony on June 9 at the art show in Way’s Garden, at the corner of West Fourth and Maynard streets.
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Local artist to be honored with historical marker - Williamsport Sun-Gazette
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