Malvin "Mal" Singer was born November 25, 1911 in Brooklyn, NYC. His father, Meyer Singer, was born in 1878 in Krasnopolye, Russia, of Jewish ancestry and came to America in 1902. His mother, Bessie Cohen, was born in 1882 in Russia of Jewish ancestry, and came to America in 1896. His parents married in NYC on April 4, 1904, and had three children, James (b.1905), Isaac (b.1909), and Malvin (b.1911). They lived at 852 Sutter Avenue in Brooklyn. His father was a lithographer at a print shop.
Malvin Singer attended public school in Brooklyn. In 1925 he began to attend Thomas Jefferson High School at 400 Pennsylvania Avenue in the East New York section of Brooklyn.
By 1927 Malvin Singer had become interested in a career as a commercial artist. In his Junior year at high school he won Honorable Mention in a school poster contest.
On June 26, 1928 he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. His year book inscription says, "Malvin Singer: He's Tom Mix's rival - he's quick on the draw!" His was only the second graduating class in the brand new school, which surpassed DeWitt Clinton in having the largest enrollment of any high school in America with over seven thousand students. The art department was run by Bernard I. Green (1887-1951), a talented artist who had studied at the National Academy of Design in NYC. Green worked hard to promote a greater interest in the school's Art League and he also submitted his students' work to a variety of art competitions to generate scholarships for further study at art schools and colleges. The artist Morr Kusnet also attended Thomas Jefferson and graduated in the school's first graduating class.
In September of 1929 he began to attend Brooklyn College, but by 1930 he had left the school without enough credits to graduate, and instead began to study art at the National Academy of Design, where in 1934 he was awarded Honorable Mention for his outstanding work in the Etching Class.
In 1936 Malvin Singer was age twenty-five. He lived at home with his parents in Brooklyn, but he also rented an art studio at 54 West 74th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he began to paint freelance covers for pulp magazines. His work appeared on Ace G-Man Stories, Ace-High Detective, Adventure, Argosy, Captain Satan, Dime Mystery, and Dime Sports.
He also sold illustrations to slick magazines, such as Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Liberty, and McCalls.
The 1940 U.S. Census listed Malvin Singer as twenty-eight, with three years of college, living with his parents at home in Brooklyn, while also renting his art studio in Manhattan.
During World War II Malvin reported for induction on June 28, 1943. He did his basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and was stationed with the Signal Corps in the United Kingdom. After D-Day he served in the communications unit of General Patton's 7th Army, and saw active duty in Europe.
While serving overseas a Jewish community group organized morale events for young women to write letters to Jewish servicemen, including Private Malvin Singer, who was grateful for the mail. He kept up the correspondence with his pen Pal, Anne Fleischer, and after the war, he looked her up and persuaded her to date him.
In 1946 Malvin Singer married Anne Fleischer. She was born on July 18, 1921 in New York City. The married couple left NYC and moved to Long Island, where they lived in a suburban home on Elmwood Avenue in the town of Roosevelt, NY.
In 1955 Mr. & Mrs. Malvin Singer had a daughter, Jane Bess Singer.
After the war the artist illustrated paperback book covers, such as Pocket Book #506 "The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford, also #574 "Unmarried Couple" by Maysie Greig, and #599 "Secret Marriage" by Kathleen Norris.
In 1948 Malvin Singer began to teach a painting class in the techniques of illustration at The Brooklyn Museum Art School, where he continued to teach until 1951.
Duirng the 1950s he worked for men's adventure magazines, such as Stag and True War.
In 1958, Malvin Singer left NYC and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was hired as a staff artist at the Lockheed Corporation, an aerospace company, with offices in Marietta, GA.
Malvin Singer died in Atlanta, GA, at the age of sixty-three on December 8, 1974.
© David Saunders 2016 |
