Dean, Bob (1875-1949)

Born Robert Jerome Dean in Chattanooga, TN, this NDG artist was primarily a cartoonist. Having attempted to join the circus as a contortionist, Dean moved with his family to Buffalo and eventually studied at the Student Art League. His first job was drawing turf cartoons for Horse World—Buffalo, then editorial cartoons for the Buffalo Times. In 1905 Dean joined the Atlanta News (a city where he lived for several years). Dean was a prolific, sometimes imaginative illustrator at Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus’s Magazine; while working there he created a hybrid fantasy story-comic strip called The Zotwots that was published between 1908 and 1914. When Harris’s magazine folded the strip ran for a short period in the New York Herald. Like many other cartoons of this period, racial humor and minstrelsy sometimes informed Dean’s series. He then moved to New York City to find work where he could as a writer and illustrator: Collier’s magazine, the New York Journal, Herald, and Telegraph Some of his drawings found their way onto lithographs, wooden jigsaw puzzles, and ceramic plates. He spent his last twenty years living in Dutchess County. 2 more images at FAP.


Sources Consulted: “Robert J. Dean Dies at 72, Cartoonist, Etcher of Renown,” Poughkeepsie Journal 27 Jan. 1949: 24”; Alex Jay, “Inkslinger Profiles: Bob Dean,” Stripper’s Guide 28 Feb. 2011.

 

Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by Bob Dean:

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Old Brickyard, Chelsea
Old Brickyard, Chelsea

Sometimes called Low Point, Chelsea, NY is located north of the present-day Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. Dean’s etching shows the ruins of what had once been a thriving Hudson River industry, using mud from seasonal deposits. We see grass in the foreground, possibly of some marshy variety, and a profusion of foliage in various textures reclaiming the brickworks buildings. At far right, a human figure serves to render the scale.

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