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<TITLE>Walter Baumhofer Biography</TITLE>
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<B>[This picture was published in "Night in the big swamp", by John Randolph Phillips, <B><I>American Magazine</I></B>, July, ca. 1940's.
Oil on canvas, 25.5 x 37.75"]</B></FONT><BR><BR>
<img src="images/baumhofer_sig.gif" align="LEFT" width="108" height="58" valign="0" halign="0" vspace="3" hspace="5" border="0"><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="2" FACE="Helvetica, Arial"> <font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">A
versatile storyteller, <B>Walter Baumhofer (1904-1986)</B> was a dominant
force in the pulp magazine market and a steady, inspired mainstay of the
general interest magazines. Though the time he spent illustrating pulp
magazines was relatively brief, Baumhofer had an enormous impact on the
genre. The prolific artist recalled in a letter to Walt Reed in 1968,
"I doubt if anybody did as many pulp covers as I did in the '30s. I had
a contract with Street & Smith for three or four years to do 50 covers
a year. In addition to this, I was turning out Lord knows how many covers
for Popular Publications, and illustrating for Liberty." In the artist's
files is a scrap of paper listing 521 pulp covers - and it is likely that
even this impressive number falls short of his actual output.<BR>
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Baumhofer's first professional assignment came from <B><I>Adventure</I></B>
magazine, where he was commissioned to do black- and-white interior illustrations.
Another pulp artist, H. Winfield Scott, who had made quite a splash the
previous year, advised him in 1926: "Why fool around with those black
and whites, why not try covers? They pay all of $75!" Baumhofer took Scott's
advice and soon sold his first cover to Clayton Publications for <B><I>Danger
Trail.</I></B> From there, he proceeded to do covers for <B><I>Ace-High,
Dime Detective</I></B> and other pulps, leading to his creation of Street
& Smith's <B><I>Doc Savage,</I></B> for which he created all 43 covers
between March 1933 and September 1936.<BR>
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The artist's popularity has been explained this way by Robert Sampson
in The Pulp Collector: "Baumhofer brought to pulp magazine covers the
resources of fine art. He created covers of unified design, focused and
balanced, done in a transparent richness of color and swimming with clear
light." From a practical point of view, versatility was the key. By the
artist's accounting, he painted about 750 covers and illustrations for
general interest magazines, primarily in the Forties and Fifties. He also
did advertising for <I>Lucky Strike, Maxwell House,</I> and <I>Beauty
Rest.</I> During his association with the American Artists agency, he
worked for just about every nationally circulated magazine with the single
exception of <B><I>The Saturday Evening Post.</I></B> As many publications
began relying heavily on photography, Baumhofer's options became limited.
His venues became calendars and sporting magazines. Hunting and fishing
subjects gave him adequate opportunity to exercise his humorous side.<BR>
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In 1982, Baumhofer reminisced: "These works represent my whole life. They
bring back so many memories - memories of times long past, of models,
assignments, stories, editors, and long hours of work; of days when illustration
was alive and vigorous." These pictures represent a consummmate professional
with limitless energy and a genius for consistently capturing the decisive
moment, the moment that illuminated the story, hooked the reader and sold
the magazine.<BR>
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