Malvin "Mal" Singer was born November 25, 1911 in Brooklyn, NYC. His father was Jacob Singer, a Jewish immigrant from Vilnius, Poland (now Lithuania). His mother was Rebecca Singer. He was the oldest of eleven children. They lived in a crowded apartment at 593 Stone Avenue in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. His father worked in the garment industry.
In 1925 his family moved to 352 11th Street in Brooklyn. He went to public school in Brooklyn and he completed high school in 1928. That Fall he began to attend Brooklyn College, but by 1930 he had left the school without enough credits to graduate, and instead he began to study art at the National Academy of Design, where in 1934 he was awarded Honorable Mention for his outstanding work in the Etching Class.
By 1936 he had an art studio in Brooklyn, where he began to paint freelance covers for such pulp magazines as Ace G-Man Stories, Ace-High Detective, Adventure, Argosy, Captain Satan, Dime Mystery, and Dime Sports.
He also sold illustrations to slick magazines, such as Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Liberty, and McCalls.
During World War II he served in the Signal Corps as a Private. He reported for induction on June 28, 1943. He did his basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
After the war he illustrated paperback book covers, such as Pocket Book #506 "The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford, also #574 "Unmarried Couple" by Maysie Greig, and #599 "Secret Marriage" by Kathleen Norris.
In 1948 he began to teach a painting class in the techniques of illustration at The Brooklyn Museum Art School, where he continued to teach until 1951.
In 1952 he married Diana Singer, and they had one daughter, Perl Singer.
On February 16, 1954, he and his wife and infant daughter traveled via Pan American Airways with his younger brother, Solomon Singer, to visit Europe.
In the late 1950s he worked for men's adventure magazines, such as Stag and True War.
According to Peter Haining in American Pulp Magazines, "Malvin Singer had once wanted to be a police officer."
After retiring from illustration he moved to his wife's hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, to live near her family.
Malvin Singer died in Atlanta, GA, at the age of sixty-three on December 8, 1974.
© David Saunders 2009 |
