Walter Haskell Hinton

Art Brokerage: Walter Haskell Hinton American Artist: b. 1886-1980. Walter Haskell Hinton was born August 24th, 1886 in San Francisco In Chicago, the school system noted Hinton's irrepressible urge to draw and suggested art study. His father had him study under the French artist Albert François Fleury, who took him on landscape painting expeditions. After about a year and a half, Fleury recommended a more formal education, and Hinton attended the Chicago Art Institute starting in 1900. His first intention was to become a fine artist but he enjoyed his illustration classes, and soon wished to study with the great master of fiction illustration, Howard Pyle. But when his father unexpectedly died in 1905, Hinton had to cease fulltime education and take up commercial art in order to provide for his mother and himself. He never did return to formal training after 1907, but he believed learning was a life-long process, and so he read books voraciously to educate himself about the things he painted. After his first job in a Chicago engraving house, Hinton was recruited to Milwaukee, first with Hall and Taylor, and then with Cramer-Krasselt, where he remained for several years. There, he became so useful in originating advertising concepts that they sorely missed him when he went traveling in Mexico in 1909. He went on to Philadelphia in 1913. He did work for NW Ayers, The Saturday Evening Post, Cheney Silk Co., Atlas Powder, Indian Motorcycles, Liggett & Myers, and Baldwin Locomotive. Freelancing also allowed Hinton to paint more non-commissioned work. Over the years he produced many bucolic landscapes, farm scenes, historical images, and pictures of wild animals and native people in majestic wildernesses. These he sold to large printing and publishing firms such as Brown & Bigelow, who distributed them in the form of calendars and art prints; these in turn often made their way into puzzles. Listings wanted.