Monday, August 03, 2015
News of Yore 1925: Hugh Rankin Profiled
Who's Who in ZIFFS
(reprinted from Ziff's magazine, December 1925)
We take pleasure in announcing a new series of unusually
brilliant drawings which will further brighten the already scintillating pages
of ZIFFS, and hereby introduce to our readers "the man behind the pen"
with the hope that you'll like each other!
Hugh Doak Rankin comes from Old American Pioneer Stock,
dating back as far as 1641. Scotch-Irish, English and German ancestry. It was
at the home of his great grandfather, Rev. John Rankin (a noted abolitionist) that
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote most of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." John Rankin had
a station on the famous under-ground railroad at Ripley,
Ohio, across from Kentucky. The house is standing today and is
riddled with bullets, the result of raiders trying to reclaim runaway slaves.
There Eliza crossed the ice, with the assistance of Cal Rankin, a son of the
Rev. John. (He appears in the book under the guise of the Quaker.) The Rankins are
blood relatives of General Sam Houston, the famous old Warrior-President of Texas, and Davy Crockett, of Alamo
fame.
Hugh Rankin's middle name is Doak, after an ancestor who
founded the first college west of the Alleghany mountains. He is also a
descendant of General Dearborn, and of the Copps of Copp's Hill, historic in
the Revolutionary War.
This background found its outlet when Hugh carried an oar in
the Spanish War and a gun in the World War as a volunteer with the 50th
Infantry.
Rankin says he served the shortest term in the American Navy
on record, and the longest in the American Army (at least, he continues, it
seemed the longest to him!). The 50th was a sister regiment of the 23rd and was
practically annihilated at Chateau Thierry, being the first of the Allied Troops
to stem the German drive.
He could scarce help being an artist as his mother was a
sculptress of international renown, having modeled the largest figure ever
completed by a woman, "Pele, The Goddess of Fire” thirty-three feet tall.
Accounts of her work are to be found in the cornerstone of the Woman's Temple at Chicago.
His art training was rounded out with much time in Europe and a geographic range of eight countries. From Canada to Florida,
Missouri to Austria,
with Paris, Munich
and Rome included,
he covered before the age of twenty. Then a record in newspaper work, ten of
the biggest dailies. Book and magazine illustrations by the score. His most
notable work of recent years being a series of eighteen historic pictures
"Through the Ages with Father Time," for the Elgin Watch Company,
which appeared in every large magazine in the country, and were considered by
the Company as their most successful advertising campaign.
Mr. Rankin's serious work is characterized by strong
individuality and charm. The whimsicalities he is drawing for ZIFFS will be
along the line of his best ability and will mark an epoch in the odd and
unusual with a smile thrown in for good measure.
(also see Alex Jay's Ink-Slinger Profile of Mr. Rankin)
Labels: News of Yore
