Space Man, A Stand Up Comic

Another long-lost, early John Schoenherr illustration has come to light, thanks to the work log that I found a few weeks ago: it's the cover for issue #3 of the comic book Space Man, published by Dell in 1962.

It's job #225 in the log, which shows that Dell commissioned him on February 7, 1962, and paid him $200 on April 17. The original painting - wherever it is! - is most likely gouache on illustration board.

This one's closer to his usual fare than the Monster Parade covers, but it's still an oddball - at least compared to much of his other science fiction pictures. Its "retro" quality would make it at home on a pulp magazine or B-movie poster of the 1940s or 1950s. He sure could could lay it on thick, when need be.

John Schoenherr's Monster Parade

This an odd way to commemorate the third anniversary of my father's death, but maybe it'll leaven the gloom.

Last week, going through some paper bags and boxes of Dad's financial records, I found an interesting document: it's basically a log of his paid illustration jobs, numbered consecutively, starting with #1 in October 1956 (when he was a 21-year-old recent Pratt Institute graduate, living in his parents' house at 52-19 39th Avenue in Long Island City, Queens) and continuing all the way to job #258b in December 1962 (when he was 27, married, but still living under his parents' roof - or, rather, his father and step-mother's roof). I realized that I already had found part two of this "work log" that went up to job #324 in October 1964 (by which time he was married, had a 1-year-old daughter, and was living in rural New Jersey) as well as a few less-careful ledger pages itemizing his work through mid-1965.

Dad often didn't keep or get copies of the work he did, so the log - which notes the job number, the commission date, the publisher, publication, title or subject of illustration, type and quantity of picture(s), and fee (and sometimes the date he was paid and the date of publication) -  is bibliographically invaluable. By 1961 he was illustrating almost exclusively for Astounding Science Fiction (a.k.a. Analog) and doing paperback book covers for Ace and Pyramid. But before that he was drawing and painting for myriad now-forgotten publications, mostly science fiction-oriented, digest-sized pulp magazines and larger-format "men's magazines" full of lurid, sexy, and dangerous "true" stories with tag-lines like "I Gave My Legs to the Maggots of Africa"...

One of the houses he worked for was Royal Publications, starting with job #10 - two illustrations for the magazine Infinity - in December 1956. Over the next 15 months he did other things for Infinity as well as Royal's Science Fiction Adventures, Hot Rods, and True War. And then in May 1958 he was hired to do a cover for a magazine noted in the log as "MONSTER P." This - job #93 - was followed on July 31, 1958, by job #105, another cover.

It turns out that "MONSTER P." was short for Monster Parade, which lasted all of four issues. That makes identifying Dad's work a little easier, and I'm pretty confident that the two covers shown here are his work. The spider - featured on issue #2 for December 1958 - most likely came first, and then came the hula-hooping horror icons on issue #4 for March 1959.

A smoking gun by way of a credit or signature would help my case, but the texture of the spider and the handling of the bloody lady-in-distress feel right, and although Dad isn't particularly well-known for humorous subjects, he did in fact, do a lot of them, especially at that point in his career. So I'm planting a flag on these two illustrations on his behalf. Of course, if anyone can provide information to the contrary, please let me know.

 

If You Can't Face It - Faint

A few years into my dad's illustration career, he began to do spots for a "men's magazine" called MEN. Here's one - probably painted early in 1960 - from a regular feature called "Men and Medicine" by Ken Armstrong.

City Under the Sea

Here's a paperback cover my dad was commissioned to do in December 1964 for Paul W. Fairman's City Under the Sea (Pyramid Publications, Inc., R-1162, April 1965). The novel wasn't connected to the City Under the Sea movie of 1965, but was a TV tie-in to the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series on ABC, which, in turn, was based on the 1961 Irwin Allen movie of the same name. Instead of coming up with his own submarine, Dad had to follow the movie/TV design of the Seaview.

Maurice Sendak on THE BARN

Maurice Sendak, who died today, met and corresponded with my father some 43 or 44 years ago. Only four of the letters and just one of the envelopes from Sendak have survived, and I’ve often wondered if Sendak saved anything Dad sent to him. I’m especially curious about his letters, but maybe his presentation copy of The Barn still sits somewhere on a shelf or in a box at the Sendak house.

It was the first book that Dad both wrote and illustrated and it was came out during their brief acquaintance. Dad’s author’s copies were en route from the publisher at the end of June 1968 and he must have mailed one to his fellow author-illustrator not long after. It took a while for Sendak to acknowledge it, though. He wrote in October or November:

You have had dreadful thoughts of me - no doubt! The Barn came weeks ago - & I haven’t been able to write. Please forgive me. The book is terrific & how marvelous that it is all you! That is as it should be. I think it has some of your finest drawings. Thank you so much.

He also - very candidly - explained the delay:

My summer was horrible. My mother, who was ill for two years, died at the end of August. It was ghastly. And my father came all to pieces. The last two months have been taken up with trying to keep him alive. He is in the hospital now - & has an operation coming next week. Of course I haven’t worked. Although - over the last two weeks I found myself wanting to draw again! Hopeful. I’m dreadfully sorry I couldn’t go up to the Bronx Zoo & see your pictures. I would have loved that. But, quite literally, my life hasn’t been my own - & there was no possibility. I hope I can see them - I really hope they all sold! but I’d like very much to see what you’re doing. When all is quiet & somewhat sane again - let’s make plans to meet.

I’m not sure if they ever met again, though they did make a plan the following March. Sendak’s subsequent letters, however, show that a sort of misunderstanding arose over their respective depictions of skunks (in The Barn and The Dangerous Year, illustrated by my father, and in A Kiss For Little Bear, illustrated by Sendak. More on that later). But despite their differences and strong opinions I think they had a real respect for each other’s work and, for better or worse, they weren’t afraid to speak their minds. I like how Sendak closes the letter I’ve quoted here:

I feel bad about not having written to you - I really do. But you will understand. Write when you can.

Yours,

Maurice

 

Moon Crawler

Although I knew that some of Dad’s pictures inspired certain other things, I didn’t realize that one of his early science fiction covers seems to have inspired a toy or two. So I was happy to share some background information and sketches with the blogger who alerted me. Now, prepare for liftoff to Moonbase Central.

Pulp Fiction: Trapped

Like many young illustrators of his generation, John Schoenherr did whatever hack work he could find after leaving art school. So, while his science fiction and natural history output gradually gained steam, dozens of his early pieces wound up in obscure, lurid “men’s magazines”. Often uncredited or pseudonymous, these pictures were typical of the genre: violent, bloody, and bosomy. Such as this cover from Trapped Detective Story Magazine for October 1959.

Feature Publications’ Trapped lasted for all of 34 issues. Its partner in crime was Guilty Detective Story Magazine and, according to Galactic Central, “Both determined to show that the spirit of the 1940s detective pulp magazines was still alive and well in the 1950s, albeit in a digest format.”

Schoenherr’s files for this phase of his career are far from complete, so there must be more illustrations out there, waiting to be identified. His reference photos might provide some clues, however: it’s just a matter of matching poses to magazine pictures. The following set, for example, was taken on March 19, 1959, for the Trapped cover.

One Day on Beetle Rock

I’m embarrassed to say that, until yesterday, I’d never before seen this paperback cover for Sally Carrighar’s One Day at Beetle Rock. Dad’s scanty records show that it was either commissioned or delivered on May 25, 1965, and that Pyramid Books paid him $300 for it. I assume the original is gouache on illustration board.

Rascal Ephemera

Here is an obscure piece of Rascal ephemera, which used Dad’s frontispiece illustration from the book. I think it was a promotional print, sent out by the publisher sometime in the late 1960s, as it came with a flier titled, “Honors for Sterling North’s RASCAL, Winner of the Dutton Animal Book Award, 1963.” It notes:

The fame of the Raccoon from Wisconsin has spread throughout the world to capture the hearts of young and old. RASCAL has been distributed by the Book-of-the-Month Club and by two other book clubs. It will soon be made into a Walt Disney film. A nationwide bestseller for six months, RASCAL numbers more than 115,000 copies in print.

It was also a flat-fee job that netted all of $1000 for Dad. But the “Raccoon from Wisconsin” helped put him on the children’s book map.

Jacket for The Golden Eagle

Dad’s jacket art for Robert Murphy’s The Golden Eagle, published by Dutton in 1965. I assume the original painting was gouache on illustration board.

From Incident at Hawk’s Hill

I keep looking and looking, but I just can’t find the reference photo that Dad used in making this illustration for Allan W. Eckert’s Incident at Hawk’s Hill. He and I posed for it - and that’s pretty much me (or a scrawnier version of me) and although the father’s head isn’t Dad’s, the strong forearms definitely are.


UPDATE of April 12, 2011!

I found the photo - it was hiding in plain sight. And, yes, Dad’s arms are much like the dad’s in the illustration. Also, I am indeed plumper than the boy in the book. If only I had been raised by a badger on the Manitoban prairies!

On the left in the background is Dad’s jacket illustration for “The Jezebel Wolf” by F. N. Monjo.

Sherlock Holmes and John Schoenherr

Dad introduced me to Sherlock Holmes when I was 11. I’d been watching the Basil Rathbone movies and drawing pictures of the character and he suggested that I read the original Conan Doyle stories so I'd know who Holmes and Watson really were. I quickly became an absolute fanatic Sherlockian and soon appropriated his sole illustration on the subject. Actually - for copyright purposes - the elderly man seen here was called “The Great Detective” in Mack Reynolds’s science fiction story, “The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial,” which appeared in Analog for July 1965. And I always thought Dad’s Watson resembled his father, though Grandpa Schoenherr never had a walrus mustache.

“...And a red fox in a kangaroo’s pouch...”

A 1966 (or 1967?) Christmas card featuring a menagerie of animals from a few years’ worth of John Schoenherr’s children’s books. He made the original drawing in ink on scratchboard, but later scratched out the pine bough and ornaments (I’m not sure why).

eagle.........The Golden Eagle by Robert Murphy
kangaroo.........Kangaroo Red by Bernice Freschet
opossum.........Mississippi Possum by Miska Miles
fox.........Fox and the Fire by Miska Miles
skunk.........The Dangerous Year by Era Zistel
auk.........A Vanishing Thunder by Adrien Stoutenburg
rabbit.........Rabbit Garden by Miska Miles
bear.........Gentle Ben by Walt Morey

The Fox and the Hound and John Schoenherr

Most people know of The Fox and the Hound because of the cutesy Disney animated movie of 1981. But it was first a novel by Daniel P. Mannix, published by Dutton in 1967 and illustrated by John Schoenherr. I was scanning spreads from my copy of the book today and was struck by this one in particular.

“George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But...”

I highly recommend this article about how Chewbacca came to be - and my father's role in that process. But what troubles me - and has troubled me and my family and many of my father's friends in the Science Fiction world since 1977 - is that he was the unwitting, uncredited, and uncompensated “collaborator” in this creative endeavor. And is that really okay?

The Illustrated Dune via SKI-FFY

The blog SKI-FFY posted scans of John Schoenherr's pictures for The Illustrated Dune. And he quotes the back cover copy...

"I can envision no more perfect visual representation of my Dune world than John Schoenherr's careful and accurate illustrations." - FRANK HERBERT

Hear, hear, Mr. Herbert!

As far as I know, Dad made the full-color paintings featured here for the 1978 Dune calendar, and then the publisher decided to use them in an illustrated paperback edition of the novel and asked Dad to flesh out the book with black and white illustrations. He made these using his dry brush technique where he would load a brush with india ink, wipe much of it off on a paper towel, then apply the brush to the rough textured watercolor paper. Once the basic composition was laid in, he would work out the finer details with a steel nib dip pen.

Map of the Bronx Zoo

John Schoenherr (a.k.a. Dad) had a long association with the Bronx Zoo. He started visiting back in the 1940s and kept at it until he moved to New Jersey in 1964. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, my mother sometimes accompanied him to help provoke the animals while he gathered photographic reference of aggressive beasts - mostly for illustrations in “men’s magazines,” featuring vicious animals attacking Great White Hunters and other hapless, but rugged stereotypes.

Dad had his first one-man show at the zoo in 1968 and as a family we would visit sometimes: we especially liked the hyena, named Pug, who lived in the “Big Cat House,” which, in my memory, resembled the lobby of a neoclassical post office or bank with the cats and Pug as ersatz tellers.

Dad made this particular picture sometime in the early 1960s by scratching out the white lines and textures on black scratchboard - a rare variation on his usual method, where he applied ink where he wanted it on and then scratched away on white scratchboard.

Uncalculated Risk

I ran the Queens Half-Marathon with my friend Charlie Nix today and this illustration pretty much sums up how it felt. The runners - or crawlers - even resemble us a little (I'm on the left and Charlie, as usual, is in the lead). Dad made this (while living on 39th Avenue in Queens, I might add) for Christopher Anvil's short story “Uncalculated Risk" in the March 1962 issue of Analog.

Big Cat, Little Study

Dad isn't very well known for his cat paintings, but he did a lot of them in the 1960s and at one point hoped to collect them in a book or a portfolio of prints. He even wrote a text to accompany the pictures, but the project never materialized.

This study of...a jaguar? (please correct me if I'm wrong)...is the same size, medium, and vintage as "Moonlight at Midday" below (i.e. gouache on illustration board, 4.375 x 7.5"). I don't think a more finished version was ever painted or published, unless it's in a lost issue of Reader's Digest - and since Dad did paint an entirely different jaguar for that magazine in 1969, maybe this was a rejected concept. It's nice, though - and the tree branches are so "him."

Moonlight at Midday

I've always liked this small gouache painting on bristol board, but it only just dawned on me that it could have been a study for one of Dad's many paperback covers. He labeled the back "Moonlight at Midday," so I searched for a book of that title and easily found Moonlight at Midday by Sally Carrighar, published by Pyramid in 1967. Dad didn't have a copy of the book, nor a proof of the cover in his files, so I'm happy to add something new to his bibliography.

News From Bear Alley

A piece by author and editor Steve Holland on his blog, Bear Alley:

John Schoenherr, one of the finest SF magazine cover artists of the 1960s and a writer and illustrator of children's books for many decades, died in New Jersey [sic: Pennsylvania, actually] on 8 April, aged 74. Below is what I wrote about Schoenherr for Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic Historywith a couple of minor additions:

The artist who dominated Analog (as Astounding SF became in 1960) was John Schoenherr, of whom Vincent Di Fate has said, "Once in a while an artist comes along with so much innate ability that he instantly gains the respect of his peers and becomes known as an 'artist's artist' ... Schoenherr possesses just such a talent and, to put a finer point on the matter, he is one of the best compositionalists who ever worked in the field of commercial art."...

Read more

Early Risers

"Early Risers" (oil on canvas, 1994) by John Schoenherr

Before plagues of them spread across the United States, Canada Geese were rare, magical, dinosaur-looking things that came and went in small numbers. We tended to see only airborne flocks, not huge armies permanently encamped on soccer fields. In the late 1970s, Dad had a half-acre pond carved out of a scrubby field on our property, largely to lure in geese, so he could study them up close. Almost every year a pair would settle on the tiny island, build a nest, raise a family - and then leave with goslings in tow. For almost two decades, Canada Geese were one of Dad's primary subjects, culminating in the last children's book he wrote and illustrated, originally titled Gone Goose, but published as Rebel by Philomel in 1995. Much of its setting is based on the pond out back.

The Impossibles, 1963

Great color, concept, and composition. This was used on the paperback cover of The Impossibles by Mark Phillips (Pyramid Publications, June 1963). I'm pretty sure it's gouache and casein white on illustration board, but I haven't seen the original in person. Love, love, love it.

Mission of Gravity

Centauri Dreams - The News Forum of the Tau Zero Foundation has a post which features Dad's cover art for Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity (Pyramid Publications, August 1969) and asks: "Could anyone capture the essence of a story better than the remarkable Schoenherr?"

A Tribute From Sci Fi Wire

Sci Fi Wire printed this a while back. See the original post for some key science fiction illustrations - and some nice comments...

John Schoenherr, one of the finest science-fiction illustrators of the 1960s and 1970s—and the first artist to draw Frank Herbert's Dune and Anne McCaffrey's Pern—died Thursday at age 74. Herbert was so taken with Schoenherr's images that he referred to the artist as "the only man who has ever visited Dune."

Schoenherr was perhaps best known for his illustrations for Dune, which was first published in two parts as "Dune World" and "The Prophet of Dune" in the science fiction magazine Analog in 1963 and 1965, respectively, and for which he won the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Artist. Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the late 1970s, Schoenherr contributed hundreds of distinctive and memorable illustrations for various science fiction magazines and books.

For those of us who discovered science fiction in the 1960s, John Schoenherr was one of a handful of artists who helped create our visual memory of the classic science fiction of that era. His interior illustrations, especially those in scratchboard, were iconic in their dark precision. His full-color cover paintings often made use of bright, glowing colors to create dramatically alien landscapes, artifacts and creatures. In addition to Dune, he did illustrations in 1967 for Anne McCaffrey's first Pern story, "Weyr Search." He thereby contributed to the genesis of two of the most popular science fiction series of the past 50 years.

In 1978, he returned to the world of Dune with new art for The Illustrated Dune, after which he worked only occasionally in SF but continued his prolific and award-winning work in children's book and wildlife art. But for 20 years, John Schoenherr played a seminal role in helping visualize the sense of wonder of SF, and in his passing we have lost another of our greatest artists.

The Day the Bears Go to Bed

For a long time I've had a bamboo suitcase filled with Dad-related ephemera: prints and proofs and F&Gs and extracted pages from magazines. I've finally started to archive the contents and put them in some kind of order.

This is one extract I just found, which I hadn't remembered well: it's an illustration for "The Day the Bears Go to Bed" by Jean George from the October 1966 issue of Reader's Digest.

Dad made the original (kept by the publisher) in ink on scratchboard when he was at the top of his game in that medium. And this was a "collaboration," so to speak, with Jean George that predated their pairing on the Newbery Award-winning novel, Julie of the Wolves(Dad's cover has since been replaced by another, but the pictures inside are his).

Gregory Manchess Remembers

Artist Gregory Manchess' generous tribute, "Remembering John Schoenherr," appeared on Irene Gallo's blog, The Art Department, a few days after Dad passed away.

Classic Horror Film Board's Final Farewells

Here are some final farewells to John Schoenherr from the Classic Horror Film Board - "This is the place for all fans of classic horror, sci-fi and fantasy films to discuss their favorite characters, actors, movies and more."

The Studio, April 12, 2010

A few days after Dad died, I took some photos his studio. On the big easel is a snowy owl perched atop an Inuit inukshuk or inunnguaq. It's one of his last "finished" paintings - at least in that he signed and varnished it. Next to that is an old, local barn, thinly painted on foamcore. And on the left (and below) is the last picture he started, sometime after Christmas and before he went to the hospital in January. It shows an old bear slowly moving over a rocky landscape.

New York Times Obituary

Here is the obituary of John Schoenherr that appeared in The New York Times online on April 14, 2010, and in print the following day. Many thanks to Margalit Fox, who summed up his life so eloquently:

Photograph of John Schoenherr by Elizabeth Riddle

John Schoenherr, Children’s Book Illustrator, Dies at 74
by Margalit Fox

John Schoenherr, a Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator who for a half-century produced painterly, exquisitely detailed images of creatures from this world and others, died on April 8. He was 74 and lived in Delaware Township, N.J.

His death, in a hospital in Easton, Pa., was from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his son, Ian, said.

A highly regarded nature artist, Mr. Schoenherr illustrated more than 40 children’s titles. He won a Caldecott Medal in 1988 for “Owl Moon” (Philomel, 1987; text by Jane Yolen), the story of a father and daughter who go looking for owls on a cold winter’s night. Presented annually by the American Library Association, the medal honors the best illustrations in a book for young people.

Mr. Schoenherr had a parallel, equally prominent career as a science-fiction illustrator. He was the first artist to depict the world of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” stories, with its vast windswept deserts and huge menacing sandworms. Through the scores of book jackets and pulp magazine covers he drew in the 1950s and afterward - including cover art for masters of the field like Philip K. Dick, John Brunner and Anne McCaffrey - Mr. Schoenherr is widely credited with helping shape midcentury America’s collective image of alien landscapes and their occupants.

John Carl Schoenherr, familiarly known as Jack, was born on July 5, 1935, in Manhattan and reared in Queens. Growing up in a German-speaking household in a polyglot community, he used drawings to communicate with his Italian- and Chinese- and English-speaking neighbors. As a young man, he studied at the Art Students League of New York and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Pratt Institute, where he failed a class in nature drawing.

Though Mr. Schoenherr planned a career as a painter, in the late 1950s he began a long association with Astounding Science Fiction magazine, later known as Analog.

“Painting was my initial impetus,” he told The Chicago Tribune in 1988. “I just got sidetracked into illustration by things like mortgages and children. Not a bad way to prostitute yourself.”

Mr. Schoenherr was known early on as one of the few commercial illustrators to work mainly on scratchboard, which gave him stark blacks and whites and a level of fine detail that recalled Renaissance woodcuts. In later years he turned to media like watercolors and oils.

In 1965 Mr. Schoenherr won a Hugo Award, presented by the World Science Fiction Society, for his artwork for “Dune,” which first appeared as a serial in Analog. He later provided the cover and interior art for several novels in the “Dune” series and for “The Illustrated Dune” (Berkley, 1978).

It is no small thing to make a worm look terrifying. Mr. Schoenherr did so evocatively, rendering Mr. Herbert’s sand creature as a rearing, pipelike organism whose jagged, gaping maw revealed a terrible blackness within.

In an interview quoted in The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (Viking, 1988), Mr. Herbert called Mr. Schoenherr “the only man who has ever visited Dune.”

Mr. Schoenherr’s first children’s book illustrations were for “Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era” (Dutton, 1963), by Sterling North, about a raccoon. His art for children centered often on the natural world and in particular on mammals. Mr. Schoenherr was especially partial to bears, in all their dark-brown density.

His other children’s titles include “Julie of the Wolves” (Harper & Row, 1972), which won a Newbery Medal for its author, Jean Craighead George; and several he wrote himself, among them “The Barn” (Little, Brown, 1968) and “Bear” (Philomel, 1991).

Mr. Schoenherr’s paintings have been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout North America.

Besides his son, Ian, who is also a well-known children’s book illustrator, Mr. Schoenherr is survived by his wife, the former Judith Gray, whom he married in 1960; a daughter, Jennifer Schoenherr Aiello; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

If Mr. Schoenherr’s twin careers had a common bond, it was the rigorous fealty with which he drew all life-forms, real or imagined.

“I’ll always be proud of the ‘genuine aliens’ I designed,” Mr. Schoenherr told the journal Artists of the Rockies and the Golden West in 1983. “Never were they humans with insect antennae.”

An Obituary

A few days after Dad died, I needed to write his obituary for the local paper and the funeral home's website. I thought it would be more appropriate to talk personally on my own blog and in my eulogy, so I kept this as straightforward as possible. Consider it a "just the facts" primer:

John Schoenherr, Caldecott and Hugo Award-winning artist, died April 8, 2010, at Triumph Hospital in Easton, PA. He was 74.

Born July 5, 1935, in New York City, NY, he was the son of John Ferdinand and Frances Braun Schoenherr. He studied at the Art Students' League, and was a graduate of Stuyvesant High School (1952) and Pratt Institute (BFA, 1956). After living in Woodside and Long Island City, NY, he moved to a Delaware Township, NJ, farm in 1964.

Mr. Schoenherr devoted his recent years to wildlife painting, but spent decades working as an illustrator. The notable children's books he illustrated include Rascal by Sterling North, Gentle Ben by Walt Morey, The Fox and the Hound by Daniel P. Mannix, Incident at Hawk's Hill by Allan W. Eckert, Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, for which he won the Randolph Caldecott Medal, awarded annually by the American Library Association to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. He also wrote and illustrated The Barn, Bear, and Rebel.

His science fiction illustrations earned him a Hugo Award and he was the first artist to depict the worlds of Frank Herbert's Dune and Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern. Herbert is said to have credited him as "the only man who has ever visited Dune."

Over the years, Mr. Schoenherr was an avid hiker, spelunker, and photographer, and his pictorial research took him to such places as Iran, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the American West. He was a member of the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Animal Artists, the Society of Mammalogists, and was also an advisor to the Friends of the Locktown Stone Church.

Surviving him are his wife of 49 years, Judith Gray Schoenherr; a daughter, Jennifer Schoenherr Aiello of Frenchtown, NJ; a son, Ian Schoenherr of Woodside, NY; three grandchildren, Nyssa Retter, Emily Hargrave, and Samuel Aiello; and two great-grandchildren, Rivers and Eliza.

Memorial contributions may be made to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, Bamboo Brook, 170 Longview Road, Far Hills, NJ 07931.

A Blog About John Schoenherr

"Fields of Summer" (1990) by John Schoenherr


My father, John Schoenherr, was born 75 years ago today. Since his death in April, I've been sorting through his photographs, letters, sketches, drawings, paintings, illustrations, magazines, books, and other ephemera. As many of the things I've uncovered or rediscovered by and about him might be of broader interest, I've decided to display and discuss them here. I hope you'll take a look and keep coming back.