By Neysa McMein
Located in Fort Washington, PA
June 1925 McCalls magazine
'To the Girls of St. Agnes Seminary'
Neysa Moran McMein – later Mrs. John Baragwanath – wanted, as a girl in Quincy, Illinois, to be a musician. Although she changed her mind and attended the Art Institute of Chicago, she paid her way through school by writing music and playing piano in a ten-cent store.
During World War I, she went to France under the auspices of the YMCA, and entertained the troops with her singing and piano accompaniment to showings of Winsor McCay’s animated film “Gertie the Dinosaur”.
She painted her first McCall’s magazine cover in 1923, and for many years made pastel portraits of beautiful or notable young women for McCall’s monthly issues, as well as occasional covers for the Woman’s Home Companion, McClure’s, Photoplay, and The Saturday Evening Post. She also regularly contributed her drawings to the annual New York Times’ Hundred Neediest Cases.
McMein was equally noted as a hostess and friend of such notables as Alexander Woollcott, Irving Berlin, Marc Connolly, Ben Lillie, Irene Castle...
Category
1920s Other Art Style Pastel Portrait Paintings
