Girl With Bowl Of Fruit AKA "Gloucester Girl", oil on canvas, Accepted into exhibition at Lyman Allyn Museum, Old Lyme, CT., 1933

A.S. Packer, 1901 - 1999 This noted New York Illustrator, a life member of the Society of Illustrators will be featured at The Cape Cod Museum of Art in a joint exhibition with his daughter, Suzanne M. Packer. The show will include his oil portraits, early gouache paintings for advertisements and later line drawings, along with the oil paintings by his daughter, Suzanne M. Packer. His studies as a young boy were at the Chicago Art Institute, then he spent a year in Paris at the Academie Julian. Starting as an illustrator for the Chicago Tribune he soon moved to New York City where he worked for the next 40 years as a portrait painter, illustrator and mentor to his daughter Suzanne. The New York Illustrator, A.S. Packer, born September 27, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois was recognized in second grade for his drawing ability. His life was spent as an artist and illustrator from then until his death, October 14, 1999, Larchmont, NY.

Packer's early years of training were at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois and the Academie Julian, Paris, France. While working as an illustrator for the Chicago Tribune in the 1920's he maintained summer studios in Rockport, MA, working on oil portraits, often of the local people.

By the 1930's he was illustrating for the Daily News in New York City, became a member of the Society of Illustrators and shared studio spaces with artists such as Clyde Prettyman and John Atherton. In 1933, his oil painting, Girl With Bowl of Fruit was accepted into exhibition at the Lyman Allyn Museum, Old Lyme, CT. He married Katherine Mode in 1935. By 1940, he was doing illustrations for art and ad agencies in Ohio and California. Most of the illustrations from the late 1920's through the early 1940's were done as paintings in oil or gouache.

In 1943, Packer returned to NYC to become the feature illustrator for the Hearst Organization until he retired in 1985. His line illustrations appeared in the American Weekly and on covers for Parade Magazine. He also created numerous caricature portraits of famous people, which were run in the papers. Bob Hope said in a letter that this was the best of all the caricatures done of him.

Packer worked with a group of NY illustrators who visited War Veterans in hospitals to draw and paint their pictures, which were then sent home to their families. He became a Life Member of the Society of Illustrators, NYC, and was commissioned by the new Air Force Academy to do paintings on-site as part of a public relations campaign.

During his long career, Packer painted commissioned portraits for private and corporate clients, taught drawing at Wainwright House and the Pelham Art Association, was President of the New Rochelle Art Association, 1966 - 1968, and exhibited in The Great Illustrators of New Rochelle, 1988. He did numerous drawings of his children, grandchildren and of his travels to Mexico, Portugal and Cape Cod. Circa, 1995 was listed in catalogue of Academie Julian students, produced by an art gallery on Lexington Avenue, NYC, which had an exhibition of illustrators and artists from the Academie Julian.

His oil portrait paintings, gouache illustrations and drawings were in exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA with his daughter's paintings, Spanning The Years, A.S. Packer & Suzanne M. Packer. September 1 through November 18, 2007.

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