Douglas Hilliker (1891-1986) American, Original Illustration Gouache on Board. Depicts a young boy (likely Cupid) with wings, a pistol, and a bow and arrow on a plane in flight climbing up a ladder to another plane, where two older figures seem to wait for him, and an enormous glowing sun in a bright blue sky in the background. Signed bottom left. 

Overall: 16 3/4 X 12 1/4 in. 

Sight: 16 X 11 1/2 in. 

#3747 . 

Douglas Hagar Hilliker was born on May 25th, 1891 in San Francisco, California. His father, Nelson Henry Hilliker, worked as a manager of the Washington Hotel of Oakland, but died of tuberculosis when Douglas was only three. His mother moved the family to be with her father in Woodland, California, where Douglas and his brother grew up. His grandfather was a prolific local figure who had acquired vast tracts of land, and he spent much time in nature, developing an appreciation for light and color. In 1902 the family moved back to San Francisco, where Douglas began taking weekly art classes on Nob Hill at the Mary Sherwood Hopkins Art Institute. Two years later he won a $5 prize in the Hale's Department Store Art Contest, and his drawing was published in the newspaper. On April 18th, 1906, a catastrophic earthquake devastated San Francisco, killing three thousand people both during the quake and in the fiery aftermath. He watched the Art Institute burn to the ground, and the event severely affected him for the rest of his life. He went on to design the cover and interior illustrations for his high school yearbook, and went to work right away after graduating as a newspaper artist for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1910 he returned to the Art Institute, which had been rebuilt on the same property as the original. While there he met and eventually married Katherine Clarke Prosser, a writer for newspapers who was seven years his senior. In 1914 he designed and illustrated the yearbook for the University of California at Berkeley, which garnered him attention outside the state. The next year he and Katherine moved to Manhattan where he opened his own art studio on 23rd Street and began freelancing illustrations for The New York Sun, the Saturday Evening Post, and Collier's Magazine. He enlisted in 1917 and served in World War I in the Army, deployed in France with 369th Infantry. He saw battles in Champagne, Marne, and Aisne-Marne which gave him "fits of anxiety" that would someday be called as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. After his honorable discharge as a First Lieutenant in 1919 he returned to New York, but the strain of his experiences took their toll and his marriage ended in divorce a year later. In 1922 he married his second wife, Mary Dickey. He spent the 1920s drawing pen and ink story illustrations for pulp magazines such as The Munsey and All-Story Magazine, as well as illustrating advertisements and publicity posters for Paramount Motion Picture Co. His daughter Mary Deane was born in 1924, and he credited her arrival with helping to assuage some of the depression he had become prone to. In the 1930s he continued to produce numerous works for pulp magazines, particularly All-Story Love, as well as working for Railroad Magazine, but in 1940 his wife died due to illness and he became more reclusive. In 1941 he began to work for Terrytoons, where he painted backgrounds for animated cartoons for the next twenty years. In 1942 he registered with the draft to serve in World War II, although he was deemed too old for service. He retired from illustration in 1960, spending the next decade in Beaver River, New York, living in a backwoods cabin hunting and fishing, as well as learning how to make furniture. In 1984 his daughter and her husband had him moved to the New London Convalescent Home in East Lyme, Connecticut, after visiting him and discovering his deteriorating health. He died in Lawrence Memorial Hospital on April 4th, 1986.