Eugene Mac Frandzen was born in San Diego, California on April 13, 1893. His father, who was also named Eugene Frandzen, was born in Texas to Danish and German immigrant farmers, but moved to San Diego, where he began to work as the Secretary of the Pine Valley Water and Land Company, which built the Pine Valley Dam. His mother, Charlotte Elizabeth Davies, was born in Wales. There were three children in the family, Harold, Eugene, and their younger sister, Glenn. They lived at 1327 14th Street.
He spent his childhood in San Diego. In 1908 at the age of fifteen both of his parents tragically died. Harold was twenty-one, but Eugene was still in high school and his sister, Glenn, was only nine. They were raised by their maternal grandmother, Margaret Davies, a Welsh widower, two blocks away on 3107 14th Street.
Eugene finished high school in 1910 and moved to Chicago with his sister. They lived at 63 West Ontario Street. He studied at the Art Institute from 1913 to 1917. He was awarded the First Goodman Prize at his graduation on June 15, 1917. After graduation he began to teach art at the school's juvenile extension class in Longwood, Illinois.
In 1918 Frandzen reported to his draft board and was recorded to be of medium build, short stature, with blue eyes and light brown hair. He served in the Army and was sent to France in the last two months of WWI.
After the war he returned to Chicago to live with his sister at 4617 Dover Street, and to open his own commercial art studio at 57 East Jackson Boulevard.
In 1921 his sister married and Eugene Frandzen moved to New York City, where he opened an "illustration studio" at 241 West 13th Street.
In 1922 his work began to appear regularly as pen and ink story illustrations in The New York Times, often depicting scenes of destitute city children. He even wrote his own story about young boys who collect scrap firewood from old crates.
During this time he studied at the Art Students League and the Grand Central School of Art under Dean Cornwell and Pruett Carter.
In 1923 he illustrated several children's books, and in 1924 his work appeared in Boy's Life and St. Nicholas.
In 1925 at the age of thirty-two he married his wife, Emma Elizabeth Frandzen, who was twenty-two years old. They had met at the Art Students League. She was also an artist and illustrator, and, like her husband, she was also born in California. They had no children.
In 1926 he illustrated articles in Police Stories magazine. In 1927 his illustrations appeared in The Elks Magazine.
From 1929 to 1939 his work regularly appeared as interior story illustrations and covers for many aviation pulp magazines, such as Airplane Stories, Flying Aces, The Lone Eagle, Sky Birds, Sky Fighters, War Aces, and War Birds.
While continueing his career in illustration, he also enjoyed painting New England landscapes, while visiting his older brother Harry's family in Framingham, Massachusetts.
In 1940 at the age of forty-seven he and Emma returned to California and lived in Pasadena, where he began to paint landscapes.
During WWII at the age of fifty he was too old to serve in the military.
After the war he began to teach a small private art class in printmaking at his home with an antique press. He exhibited regularly in both local and national art shows.
From 1958 to 1960 he wrote two popular how-to art books, How To Paint With Casein, and Outdoor Sketching and Indoor Painting, both of which were published by the Walter Foster Company.
Eugene M. Frandzen died at the age of seventy-nine in Laguna Beach, California on July 5, 1972.
© David Saunders 2009 |
