Edmund M. Ashe (1867-1941) American, Buy Bonds World War I Poster. Signature lower middle right. Depicts a tattered American soldier ready to hurl a grenade into a trench full of Germans. Framed.

Overall Size: 45 1/4 x 30 3/4 in. 

Sight Size: 41 x 26 1/2 in. 

#6 #3578 . 

Edmund Marion Ashe was born in Staten Island, New York in 1867. He studied at the Metropolitan Art School and the Art Students League with John Ward Simson and Charles Vanderhoof. Ashe began his career as an illustrator for magazines, including Collier’s Weekly, Harper’s Magazine, and Scribner’s Magazine. He also illustrated books by John Kendrick Bangs and Richard Harding Davis, which propelled him towards a more romantic, patriotic style. In 1893 Ashe married Estelle Egbert in West New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, with whom he had two children, Dorothy and Edmund, Jr. His son was also an artist, and drew illustrations for newspapers and The American Weekly after World War II. From 1896 to 1909 Ashe was the White House artist-correspondent for Leslie’s Weekly, New-York Tribune, and New York World during President William McKinley’s and President Theodore Roosevelt’s years in office, becoming close friends with the latter. During this period he taught at the Art Students League and William Merritt Chase’s New York Art School. In 1905 he moved to Westport, Connecticut, and founded an art colony with George Hand Wright. Ashe was a founding member of the Silvermine Artists Guild in nearby Norwalk, Connecticut, along with Addison Miller, Putnam Brinley, and Clifton Meek. He was also a part of the Society of Independent Artists and New York Watercolor Club, and one of the first members of the Society of Illustrators, joining in 1901. In 1920 Ashe moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to become Associate Professor of Painting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, eventually taking over as the Head of the Department of Painting and Design. Although Ashe’s earliest oil paintings were in a bright impressionist style, his time focused on war themes led to his artwork becoming darker in tone, with broader brushstrokes, categorized as a more “progressive realist approach.” Many of Ashe’s paintings depicted the life of the working man in manufacturing and labor, often centered on industry jobs like steel-making, glass blowing, and oil drilling. Ashe was also known for his watercolors of the “Gibson Girl,” the 1900 “fashion ideal” for women, and drew numerous posters for World War I. Throughout the early 20th Century he had multiple exhibitions around the country, especially in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. In 1938 a series of paintings were commissioned for the Steidle Building of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, which are still on display today. These were his last known works, as he officially retired in 1939. He moved to Charleston, South Carolina, but returned to Westport, Connecticut a few years later for his health, dying there in 1941.

Spots throughout.