Louis Ferdinand Grant was born May 18, 1872 in Nova Scotia, Canada. His father, John Anderson Grant, was born in 1843 in New York of Scotish and Irish ancestry. His mother, Augusta M. Andrews, was born in 1848 in Nova Scotia. His parents married in 1870 at lived in Liverpool, which is a coastal town one hundred miles southwest of Halifax. They had three children, Louis (b.1872), Frederick (b.1875), and Maud (b.1877). The father was an artist.
In 1879 the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where they lived at 210 Saratoga Street.
He and his sister Maud were both interested in following their father's profession, so their father taught them the practical skills of art training. They later studied at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. His sister continued her studies in Paris, while he went directly to work as an illustrator for The Boston Globe. In 1892 he drew courtroom sketches at the trail of the famous Lizzie Borden for some newspaper. His work was also published in magazines, such as The Nation and The Century.
In 1895, during the Spanish American War, Louis F. Grant applied for American citizenship.
On September 2, 1896 he married Julia Alyce Stone. She was born in May of 1876 in Cambridge, MA. He father was Thatcher Stone and her mother was Julia A. Robinson. The married couple moved to Randolph, Vermont, where their son Fulton Thatcher Grant was born in July of 1897.
His illustrations appeared in Gunter's Magazine and The National Magazine. On December 31, 1897 the literary critic at The Harrisburg-Star Independent reported, "The National Magazine has published one of the most strikingly clever articles that has appeared in any magazine for some time past. It is 'American Restaurant Types' by Joe Mitchell Challpe. The drawings are by Louis F. Grant, who shows the master hand of a new star in every line. There is a character in his work scarcely equalled by any other American artist."
By 1898 Frank Munsey (1854-1925) had made a fortune publishing popular fiction in the innovative format of pulp magazines, such as Munsey's Magazine and The Argosy. Along with his pulp line, Munsey began to acquire a string of newspapers, book publishers, and slick magazines. In 1898 Frank Munsey hired Louis F. Grant to lead the art department of Munsey Publications.
In 1899 his father died at the age of fifty-six in Boston. After this tragic death the widowed mother, with her son Frederick, and her artist daughter, Maud Grant, moved to New York City, where they lived at 12 West 103rd Street. At that same time, Louis F. Grant, with his wife and son, also moved to New York City, and lived next door at 10 West 103rd Street. Both apartment buildings were near to Central Park.
On May 17, 1902 the artist's brother, Frederick Grant, died at the age of twenty seven in NYC.
On June 12, 1903 the artist's sister, Maud Grant, married Franck Gualdo Ford, a student at Columbia Law School. After the marriage she signed her work Maud Grant Ford.
During the first decade of the 1900s Louis F. Grant illustrated books for several publishers, including Grosset & Dunlap, and Dillingham Books.
By 1910 the Grant family had moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey, where they lived at 271 East Spring Street.
The May 1917 issue of Breezy Stories had a cover painted by Maud Grant Ford.
By 1917 his son, Fulton Thatcher Grant, worked as clerk at a telegraphy company.
In 1918 during The Great War Louis F. Grant was forty-six years old, so he did not serve in the military. His son did serve as a private in France. After the war his son became a fiction writer. Dozens of his stories were eventually published in Blue Book Magazine.
Louis F. Grant drew hundreds of illustrations, which appeared in books, newspapers, Suday Supplements, as well as pulp magagzines, such as Short Stories, The Munsey, Argosy, and Blue Book.
In 1931 Louis F. Grant traveled to France. He was recorded at the time to be five-six, with a fair complexion, gray eyes and brown hair.
In 1942 he was too old to serve in WWII, but his son enlisted and rose to the rank of Captain. Fulton Thatcher Grant served in combat and was wounded in italy. After the war, his son became the advertising manager of The New York Herald in Paris.
In 1944 Louis F. Grant and his wife retired to North Bennington, Vermont, where he lived on Main Street. His art studio was on the second floor, and was filled with intricately carved wooden blocks for printing. The artist told an interviewer, I have been fascinated with the art of wood engraving ever since I was a small boy. Wood engraving is a lost art, but it is a type of art that cannot be surpassed by detail and fineness of line." He said he missed the life in New York City, but, "I can't afford to live therem and this is a pleasant spot fo spend the rest of my days."
On Janaury 13, 1949 his son Fulton Thatcher Grant died at the age of fifty-one in the Veterans Hospital of White River Junction, VT.
Louis F. Grant died at Putnam Memorial Hospital in Bennington, VT, on May 10, 1959, one week before his eighty-seventh birthday.
© David Saunders 2017 |
