Lynn Bogue Hunt

LYNN BOGUE HUNT
American 1878-1960

One of America ’s greatest periodical wildlife artists, Lynn Bogue Hunt (1878-1960). Hunt was born in Honeoye Falls, N.Y. , but moved to Albion, MI at the age of 12 were he received his education. His artistic genius became quite apparent here, even as a youth. s. He began a three year stint as a sketch artist for the Detroit Free Press in 1899, and soon became noticed by New York magazines. He moved to New York, and joined the staff of the magazine Field and Stream. The August 1904 issue cover features a drawing
by Hunt portraying two Indians in native dress performing a snake dance, snake and all. Lynn later became the magazine’s staff artists, and drew more than 100 covers for this publication, plus numerous illustrations for the articles therein.

His works also appeared in such publications as Outers’ Recreation, the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Better Homes and Gardens, Natural History, Boy’s Life, the Woman’s Home Companion, Country Gentleman, American, Rotarian, Elks Magazine, and others. He printed the 1939 Migratory Waterfowl Stamp, 10 National Wildlife Federation stamps, and illustrated more than 50 books in his lifetime.

From the introduction to the book, Lynn Bogue Hunt: A Sporting Life by Kevin C. Shelly: Submitted by the author.

Lynn Bogue Hunt spent much of his adult life living and working in New York City and Long Island. He is famous for his outdoor and wildlife genre illustrations in magazines, books and other print publications. A sportsman from an early age, he hunted and fished throughout his life. However, he was also an advocate of conservation, supporting catch-and-release fishing techniques and habitat restoration. His passion for the old west, wilderness and outdoor recreation enabled him to intimately observe the wildlife he so accurately represented in his illustrations. Mr Hunt died in Mineola, New York.

Contradictions marked Hunt's life: Indifferent in the classroom, he assisted scientists as an adult. Though he told family and teachers that he felt most at home in the woods, he resided in or near New York City for more than 57 years. Described as friendly and gregarious, he also struck those who knew him as quiet and self-effacing. An early conservationist and ardent animal lover, he killed thousands of game animals and fish. But he also advocated catch-and-release gamefishing as early as 1935 and supported Ducks Unlimited's habitat restoration. An urbane man, member of the arty Dutch Treat Club, welcomed at the acerbic Algonquin Roundtable and exclusive Angler's Club, Hunt also was an ordinary suburban commuter much of his adult life, known to his grandchildren as "Papa Toot Toot" because of his daily travel on the Long Island Railroad.

Embarrassed by and ultimately estranged from his independent wife, the artist openly kept a mistress. As a result, Hunt's wife sometimes spent months alone on the east coast of Florida while Hunt simultaneously went to the west coast of Florida, fishing and painting in the company of his girlfriend. Despite their estrangement, Hunt's wife unstintingly cared for him during his last decade, as he grew increasingly dependent when infirmities and lost eyesight stopped his work.

His first published magazine illustration - a line drawing of a strutting grouse accompanying a story he wrote - appeared inside Sports Afield in 1897. A 1951 cover painting of mallards coming in for Field & Stream - his 106th cover illustration for that magazine alone - book-ended an astounding 54-year-career as a leading wildlife artist during the Golden Age of magazine illustration.

Hunt made some of the most recognizable sporting art ever created, including one of the earliest Duck Stamps. He illustrated more than 40 books, executed hundreds of commissioned paintings for corporations and private clients ranging from small canvases to huge hotel murals, completed about 250 separate cover paintings for nearly 40 different magazine titles, including all the top sporting publications and also general interest publications such as Boy's Life, Collier's, Better Homes and Garden, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Despite Hunt's prolific working life and high profile friendships with Ernest Hemingway and other influential sportsmen of his time, only a handful of stories were written about the artist during his lifetime - or since he died. He began, but never finished, an autobiography. He has never previously been the subject of a biographical book. And the first major showing of his dramatic artwork came more than four decades after his death.

Hopefully this book will renew interest in Lynn Bogue Hunt, one of the best sporting artists of the 20th century, and a fascinating and complex man

Like High Noon on Facebook.

Join our network to share your thoughts, have discussions, ask questions and make friends with other collectors or fans of Western Americana.  facebook.com/HighNoonWesternAmericana

Visit the High Noon Wikipedia page

en.wikipedia.org