A Photo of Lucia Lerner!

I've been so busy at school this week with my involvement on the International Women's Day promotions committee that I didn't have time to put together Today's Inspiration. But when Steve Scott, who recently sent a couple of wonderful Lucia Lerner art scans, sent yet another small batch by the artist, I had to make sure I got them posted right away.

Not only did this latest gift from Steve contain another great Redbook cover by Lucia...



... it included a photo of the artist - wow! At long last, we now know what Lucia Lerner (whom her old co-worker Will Nelson described to me as "the queen" of the Stephens Biondi DiCicco art studio in 1950s Chicago) looked like.



Reading the brief description above about Lucia leaves me even more impressed than I've been since first beginning my research into Lucia's career. Lucia was a single mom raising a daughter on her own, a tremendously talented and successful illustrator and, from all accounts, a tough but fair business woman. All of which makes her exceptional for the times in which she lived.

What better person for a blog about mid-century illustration to celebrate during the week of International Woman's Day!



And speaking of International Women's Day, please take a moment to check out the work of my students in the Graphic Design program at Mohawk College. Each student designed and illustrated a poster of the woman of their choice and the top ten were selected by a jury of faculty members to be printed in multiples and displayed across all the Mohawk College campuses this week. You can see the top ten designs on our class blog.

* Thanks again to Steve Scott for his tremendous gift of these new scans, especially the rare glimpse of the artist.

* If you'd like to see many more examples of Lucia's work and read about her career, I've collected all my research on my Female Illustrators of the Mid-20th Century blog.