Albert Dorne

February 7, 1906 - December 15, 1965

Born in the slums of New York City's East Side, and had a troubled childhood plagued with tuberculosis and heart problems. He would cut classes to study art in the museums, eventually quitting school altogether to support his family. After numerous jobs and a short professional boxing career (floored in his 11th fight after he'd won the first 10!), he began working in advertising.

He apprenticed as a letterer with then-letterer and future prominent illustrator Saul Tepper before beginning a five-year stint at the commercial art studio of Alexander Rice. He left the studio to begin a freelance career and soon his illustrations started appearing in such magazines as Life, Liberty, Look, True, Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post and by 1943 was featured on the cover of 'American Artist' magazine, recognized as 'one of the best and highest paid in the field of advertising illustration.

Famous are also his World War II posters, menu art for the Stork Club, and major ad campaigns (WurliTzer, Westinghouse, Coke, Goodyear, Wurlitzer, Frigidaire, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Liberty Mutual Imperial Whiskey), all without ever taking a formal art class (his rags-to-richess success earned him the Horatio Alger Award from the American Schools and Colleges Association).

In 1948 Dorne conceived the idea of a correspondence school for art, and recruited eleven other well-known artists and illustrators, including Norman Rockwell, to found the Famous Artists School.

Albert Dorne - Wurlitzer Art