The American Magazine, May 1933.
An atypical piece by Wladyslaw Theodor Benda (1873–1948), a Pole who moved to the US to work for the magazines. His illustrations are rarely this splendid but he gained a later reputation as a mask-maker, a talent that would have helped with his cover depicting the Mask of Fu Manchu for Collier’s.
Collier’s, May 7th 1932.
This page has a great succession of images showing how Benda’s original mask design managed to survive reinterpretation by subsequent Rohmer illustrators—what you might call a case of visual Chinese whispers.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Vintage magazine art II
• Vintage magazine art