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Following the trend that E.T. Paull was very much on top of, many publishers started to enhance their covers more so with art than just text. There are a number of broad categories of cover art that were used, the most obvious pertaining to the title or content of the music within. However, particularly in the case of piano rags or marches, the title did not always suggest a format for the cover art, so publishers and artists winged it. There was also a matter of the style of art that would represent the piece, whether the content within was clear or not. With that in mind, a few of the categories for what is now collectible cover art in addition to or replacing textual content might be as follows (in no particular order - click on category for detail - hover to view an example):

Racial Stereotypes Children Ladies/Fashion Celebrities/Performers Food Silhouettes Events Places/Exotic Locales

Caricatures/Cartoons Animals Romance/Couples Soldiers/War/Patriotic Inventions Fade-Aways Disasters Landscapes/Still Lifes

Publishers established in the 1890s and 1900s saw the need for catchy covers immediately, particularly to accompany the emerging ragtime genre. In the 1890s, The introduction of photographic printing and offset presses, which were a modification of the lithography process, put fancy color covers within affordable reach of all commercial publishers. Some of the older firms resisted for some time, either continuing to use text-based covers or relying on commercial stock art in a monochrome format, but most of them either languished or caught on to the reality of marketing in a new century. A new field emerged from the need for what was, in essence, perpetual advertising - that of the career cover-art illustrator. Working within their own realm of personal talent, be it realistic portraits or eye-catching graphical content, many of them thrived throughout the ragtime era. Some publishers retained the services of an in-house designer or artist, but the top illustrators worked as independent contractors for whoever would buy their art. Some even created a catalog of stock illustrations, any of which could be used for a variety of pieces. Some of the most prolific are featured here. Thanks up front should go to Marion Short who with her husband Roy uncovered or collected information on many of these artists when compiling her five books on Collectible Sheet Music Cover Art, all of which are highly recommended acquisitions for any collector's library.

You may view the linked covers using two different methods. To see a half-size image on this page, simply over the mouse over a tune title for a second and it will load. To see a full-size image with more information on the piece, click on the tune title to load the cover window.

     Virtually anybody who has even a minimal sheet music collection that includes ragtime-era items likely has a cover done by one of the prolific Starmer Brothers. They had a consistency that was hard to match in terms of creating eye-catching cover art that did justice to or often outshined the contents within. By some accounts, they were responsible for nearly a quarter of all signed covers in large format from 1900 to around 1919, and continued producing cover art into the mid 1940s.
     The family immigrated from England to New York City, William in 1898 and Frederick in 1899. William's wife Julitta came in 1900. For the longest time, it was hard to discern that there were two Starmers at work, since the covers had similar attributes and they all had the same Starmer signature According to collector Marion Short, it was piano roll and sheet music collector Mike Montgomery who first discovered the identity of at least one of them through an invoice obtained from the daughter-in-law of publisher Jerome H. Remick, a bill from William Austin Starmer. Curiously, it listed him as an "Artist and Medical Draughtsman" from Austin, Long Island, They somehow escaped the 1900 census, but a check of the 1910 census shows that William (b. 1872) was the older brother of Fredrick (b. September 2, 1878), and that they were immigrants from England. Both listed artist as their occupation in 1910, with William as "commercial" and Frederick as "illustrating." William and his wife shared their Manhattan apartment with Frederick as well. The 1920 census shows them all living in the same apartment, with both listed as commercial draftsmen. Passenger manifests of the 1910s and 1920s indicate many trips back to England as well, so they did stay connected with their home country. By 1930 William, now a naturalized citizen, had remarried to Edith M. Starmer, and his accountant son, William Jr. (b. 1907), who had curiously not appeared previously, was now living with the couple in Queens. William listed himself as a commercial artist with his own studio, likely the same situation as previous years. Frederick's fate after 1920 is difficult to trace, the last indication being a passenger manifest in September of 1925. So he either immigrated back to England or perhaps died in the late 1920s. It is also hard to trace William after 1930.
     The sheer volume of work with the Starmer signature on it makes it clear that both of them worked in the sheet music field as well as their other pursuits. Assuming each brother signed their own covers, albeit with only the last name, and that there are some distinctions between the drawings they created in virtually every conceivable category and theme, it may be possible at some point to catalog to a certainty of 70% or higher which brother drew particular covers, and if there were any collaborative efforts. But given their closeness in both style and life-long pursuits, it would stand to reason that there was some crossover in their drawing styles, and perhaps many of the brilliant covers they turned out were collaborations.
     As you look through their collection, represented here in only a small quantity, note their fluid use of color, as well as the ability to draw realistic people simply but elegantly without delving into caricature unless it was called for. There is a mix of still lifes with simply patterned covers, and their command of lettering in interestingly derived fonts is also evident. Style on many of the covers is paramount, whether it be for fashion or for fadeaways. Rarely did anything delve into negative stereotype, perhaps a part of their British upbringing. Much in the vein of Currier and Ives, the brothers often captured subjects in a candid photographic sense that made the drawings look very natural. Through Remick's sheer volume of distribution, their work is in many ways the face of the ragtime era at its best.

     Best represented by the large remaining cache of E.T. Paull publications, the A. Hoen lithography house hosted some of the finest craftsmen of the trade, adept not only at superb illustrations and mapwork, but the demanding process of color separation onto multiple stones as well. Unfortunately for the sake of historic clarification or recognition, virtually all who worked for Hoen were "company men" whose names names have not made it to print, unless they were cleverly concealed within the drawings somewhere. There was also a very coherent and uniform style with most of the Hoen covers and posters, which would make it even harder to distinguish the work of any individual artist. There are employee names throughout the years associated with the firm, but their duties are not clearly known.
     The firm was initially started by Edward Weber in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1840s as E. Weber & Company. German immigrant August Hoen took it over with his brothers Henry and Ernest in the mid 1850s, upon Weber's death. His firm not only provided some very fine monochrome and color covers and lithophotography for local Baltimore publishers, but for firms in Washington, D.C. and as far off as the Carolinas. Some of the artist's names from that era, notably Clayton (a prolific Baltimore engraver), Gillingham, Webb, Duffy and W. French, have been found on some covers. Henry worked with the Baltimore firm until his death in 1893. Alfred Tennyson Hoen (b. 1873), the youngest of the six sons and three daughters of the founder, ran the A. Hoen lithography firm in Baltimore with older brother Albert B. Hoen throughout the early 20th century. August Hoen died in 1886, before the reign of E.T. Paull, but certainly with a well-cemented reputation for top quality prints, very notably on some beautiful cigar boxes.
     A branch of A. Hoen eventually surfaced in Richmond, Virginia by the late 1860s, run mostly by one of his sons, Earnest A. Hoen (b. 1853) starting in the mid 1870s, but it is hard to discern if any of the Baltimore artists followed. Among Hoen's earliest Richmond jobs was the printing of Southern currency near the end of the Civil War. In the newer Richmond plant the quality of inks and paper stock, as well as the multi-layer lithography process itself saw great advances, to the point where most Hoen-produced covers and cigar boxes from the 1890s forward still retain their original hues after more than a century. Whereas most sheet music publishers used from one to three colors in simple patterns for their covers, E.T. Paull was looking for something more, and settled on the five color multi-layer process utilized by Hoen, instantly setting his works apart visually and thus creating sales for what the consumer viewed as both music and art. Oldest sibling Adolph G. Hoen eventually moved to Richmond, but his involvement in the firm may be peripheral, as he was listed as a physician in 1910.
     The works by the Hoen firm are usually well-marked so their parentage is clear, whether it be maps, cigar boxes, or their beautiful sheet music covers over a period of seven-plus decades. Focusing on the era of E.T. Paull, they tended towards not only a high modicum of realism (with very few caricatures), but a level of detail in the backgrounds that most cover artists ignored. This may well have been at the insistence of Paull, who most certainly knew what he wanted. Since it appears that his was the only sheet music they printed covers for (in most cases, the music plates themselves were created elsewhere), it is likely that Paull found some way to convince them that the visibility provided by his music might bring the firm more work at the very least. They were also possibly the only company in Richmond, much less Virginia, capable of the level of artistry he was looking for, with their enormous building covering a full city block, indicating stability and growth. In any case, whether it was a battle scene or some natural catastrophe, the vivid hues Hoen achieved, often focusing on reds, provided great accent to even the smallest of details such as lava ash or a swinging sword. Even though it is common to display framed sheet music today, it was an honor applied largely to the Hoen works from the Paull catalog during the early 20th century. The Hoen firm continued in the lithograhpy and printing business until around 1981.

     Born in New York City in August, 1869 (or 1868) to a German immigrant father and New York mother, Edward was familiar with art production at a young age since his father worked as a professional engraver. According to a brief biography assembled by his granddaughter, Ann M. Pfeiffer Latella, the young man showed a predilection and interest for art at an early age. He dabbled in costume jewelry design and some illustration work for publications such as magazines and newspapers, but is best known for his often stunning sheet music cover art, in part because his signature appears on it more often than the other works. At some point in his youth he suffered a leg injury that resulted in a life long limp, and the eventual onset of osteomylitis that contributed to his death in 1932. His pain was such that he designed his own orthodic device to help him walk more comfortably. In the 1900 census, married by this time to his wife Fannie, he is listed as a designer, but before 1910 he is showing up in directories and in the census as an illustrator with his own studio. By 1920 he was divorced, but still working as a commercial artist. In 1930 Edward was infirmed and in managed care.
     Pfeiffer's first covers date back to 1892, and his volume of work spans over 100 publishers, indicating that his reputation as a freelance artist was likely considerable. Pfeiffer's signature varied in scope from the simple EHP to Fifer to the official sounding Pfeiffer Illustrating Co.. However the majority of his works featured the unique E.H. Pfeiffer N.Y. script, which is as recognizable to collectors as the Disney signature is to kids. While many of his works reflect some representation of the title of the piece they adorn, he was particularly gifted with drawing floral motifs and attractive women, exercising careful consideration for near-photo realistic shading. Pfeiffer was also an early advocate of what became the Art Deco school of art by the late 1920s. Of particular favorites listed here are the highly stylized Bantam Step and three different versions of Wild Cherries.

     This unique illustrator and sometime composer was born in Hungary in 1880. His father, who may also have been an artist, was a Hungarian Count. Andréa immigrated to America from Budapest in 1899, and later in life would also refer to himself as "count" at least once in one novel that he illustrated. Once established in New York, where he lived out his life, André, as he then referred to himself, started on a path that left a fascinating legacy of artwork, the majority of it on sheet music covers dating from 1906 to 1919. He is known to have illustrated at least two novels, and created some commercial art as well for both posters and postcards. André also wrote a few songs and song lyrics, for which he illustrated the covers, as might be expected. One of these songs titled When Bessie Met the Bobby of Her Dreams was dedicated to his wife Bessie who he married around 1903, and she was used as a model for his covers from time to time. They are shown in the 1910 census living with their two children and her parents in Palisades, New Jersey. Although he contracted to a wide variety of publishers, a large volume of his work was featured on compositions published by the Jerome Remick Publishing Company and F.A. Mills. There are indications that he may have been involved in the New York motion picture industry, perhaps as a set or art designer. The unusual signature was modified several times during his career. André died August 23, 1919 at the age of 39, his sad demise reportedly the result of a heart attack in a New York City taxicab. Bessie followed in 1927, and both are buried in Englewood, New Jersey.
     De Takacs used lots of bold coloring in his work, such as in My Pony Boy, and was able to create both realistic images as well as pleasingly abstract ones. He was quite versatile with the "fade-away" technique, where the clothing or other portions of a subject is of the same color or pattern as the background, making the the relevant portions stand out more while the rest of the figure fades into the background (see Calico Rag [not by De Takacs] for a vivid example of this technique).

Many thanks for additional information and verification go to Andrea Ellis who was named after her great grandfather, as well as Keith Emmons of HulaPages.Com. The last few years have been a voyage of discovery for her family as well in regards to André De Takacs' artistic legacy.

     Very little is available on this talented artist whose primary legacy graces a number of large format covers from the early 1900s to around 1914. Frew was born in Ireland on January 21, 1875, and immigrated to the United States in 1895, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1900. He met his wife Molly Elizabeth in New York. The 1910 census shows them living living in Manhattan and he is, as expected, listed as an illustrator. In 1920 he lists himself as a commercial artist and still married. The couple evidently did not have children.
     Frew was able to produce quality artwork on demand, and some of his concepts combine the simple with the intricate. In many cases the subjects would be well rendered with careful shading while the backgrounds were very basic. His work was not as dimensional as other serious artists, but covers such as the comical Dill Pickles Song and the entrancing Solace (done while publisher John Stark was still in New York City) are nonetheless visually stimulating. His most widely circulated work, due in part to the success of the piece within, is the famous Alexander's Ragtime Band. John Frew worked within a limited circle of New York publishers, and reputably suffered from eccentricities that many associated with artistic types, a factor that may have made his working relationships difficult. He died in a mental hospital in the mid 1920s having exhausted his funds.

     Albert Wilfred Barbelle was of French Canadian and American descent. Born February 15, 1887 in Fall River, Massachusetts, he spent much of his initial formal art study in his teens in Paris and London learning both traditional and commercial art. Once back in the U.S. in New York City, he continued painting, but also contracted as an advertising and sheet music cover artist. The 1920 census shows him as a studio artist, married to Irene Frew. By 1930, still a commercial artist, he was married to (looks like) Franck Frew. After his two failed marriages, Barbelle's involvement with music increased when he married composer and pianist Paula Fuchs in the mid 1930s. The volume of work turned out in some forty years was quite impressive, with the earlier large format sheets usually signed with his full name, but later works only as Barbelle. Later in life he was able to arrange some gallery shows of his more serious beautiful paintings. He was actively involved as an artist, largely with the Staten Island Museum in New York City, until his death in February of 1957.
     Barbelle's work was wide ranging, including enhancing photographic subjects, fantasy creations and interesting silhouettes, a series of what would now be considered politically incorrect African-American themed humorous greeting cards, and even some work illustrating the early Mickey Mouse in print. But his forte was in painting beautiful women. He was very conscious of style and fashion, and was careful to keep his work contemporary as both of those elements evolved through the decades. His use of color was more subtle than some artists, but always tasteful, often with one particular hue deliberately highlighting a picture for effect.

     The identity of the artist (or artists) behind this mystery signature has not, to date, been identified with any level of certainty. However, researcher Keith Emmons has uncovered the origin of the famous Rosebud Symbol and the man who likely ran the studio. His name was Morris Rosenbaum (German for "rose bush") who formed the Rosenbaum Studios (R.S.) in Manhattan in the early 1910s. Further research shows him to be a Polish immigrant who moved to the U.S. with his parents, Jacob and Katherine Rosenbaum, in 1886, shortly after he was born on February 22. Jacob Rosenbaum was a builder who later became a real-estate broker in New York City. The second oldest of five boys and one older sister, Morris Rosenbaum is likely responsible for these cryptically signed covers which date back as far as 1906 when he was 19 or 20. The 1910 census shows him as a naturalized citizen working as an artist working for a weekly magazine. The same information shows on his 1918 draft registration. The 1930 census shows him still living with his parents, listed as a commercial artist. Morris likely never married.
     The number of minor and major variations of the symbol alone suggest that it is likely the work of four or more artists, including Morris, which are represented over a nearly 27 year span of the studio's cover art production. As many as fourteen variations of the Rosebud symbol appeared with the initials R.S. on art that graced the covers of many pieces, suggesting the hand of multiple artists. Around 1913 Rosenbaum had employed the famed illustrator of the Oz books W.W. Denslow. For some time the studio was employed nearly exclusively by the Leo Feist publishing house (1912 to 1919) and later the Irving Berlin company (1919 to the late 1920s). Some covers showed just the rosebud and others the stem and rose in varying proportions. Other variations in the use of color palettes and line style on the drawings themselves further reinforce this contention. The advantage of utilizing a staffed studio was that fees were generally standardized, and the staff could be called upon to provide a wide variety of needs, such as full color drawings or simple border art for a photographic cover. As with the large number of E.T. Paull engravings from the Hoen Company, it is difficult to discern the work of individual artist's contributions, even if their names are known. An alternate suggestion for the R.S. name was that yet another Starmer, this one named Rose, had entered the commercial art profession, but this seem unlikely.

     Sydney Leff was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 18, 1901. He was the youngest of eight children of Austro-Hungarian immigrants. Some of his first commercial work was produced while he was still in high school and continued as he attended the National Academy of Design in East Harlem, with fellow classmate Al Hirschfeld. In 1923 he answered an advertistment from lyricist Sam Coslow who was looking for a new cover artist. The initial jobs paid $15, but he was soon able to command much more. The simple yet eye catching style translated into a lot of contract work for the young artist, and he was known to turn out three to four covers a day at some point at $25 each, ultimately completing over 2000 of them. Clearly reflecting the hair and clothing styles of the 1920s in his art, many of Leff's covers could be categorized as Urban or Moderne. He was both highly involved and evolved in his cover artwork during the bulk of the Art Deco era of the 1920s and 1930s. Leff retired from music covers in the 1940s as more of them featured celebrity photographs than they did art. The next obvious move was to advertising, in which he became somewhat of an icon on Madison Avenue. After another retirement, Leff tried marketing some of his older sheet music drawings again on calendars, mugs, and other merchandise, with limited success. Still, his work had staying power, a point that was emphasized as recently as 2000 when some of his covers were featured in a caberet music exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York with Mr. Leff in attendance. He finally passed on in October of 2005 at age 104.
     One word that describes Leff's style might be contrast. Whether it be in shading or through starkly different yet complimentary covers, he was able to bring out the parts of the cover that were most relevant to the song within. Irving Berlin in particular used Leff for a large number of publications during his career in part because of the artist's command of relevance. Leff also conveyed emotion and attitude, partially through facial expression but also through the use of body language. His comic covers are whimsical in both content and proportion without overdoing the caricature aspect.

     Gene Buck was born August 8, 1884 (or 1885) in Detroit, Michigan. He was as nearly well known as a musician as he was for his cover art contributions. He had formal training at the Detroit Art Academy, focusing on Art Noveau. Buck was soon employed by the Jerome Remick company in New York as a staff illustrator where he reportedly produced over 5000 covers, although this includes arranging photographic as well as text-based covers. Evolving from his initial training he became adept at Art Deco even before it had recognized as an independent style. The bulk of his illustrations range from 1904 to 1914, a time when he started experiencing severe vision problems.
     Starting in 1910 Buck tried his hand at composing. Many of his earliest songs as a lyricist to the music of Dave Stamper appear on a series of Edison Diamond Discs from the 1910s. Gene was quite active in the New York music scene and mingled with stars of stage and screen. He also wrote with composers Victor Herbert and Rudolph Friml. He spent many years in the employ of Flo Ziegfeld contributing both writing and set design for the famous Ziegfeld Follies. His 1917 draft registration shows him as a playwright with Ziegfeld working at the New Amsterdam Thetaer. Buck continued composing into the 1920s and was the President of ASCAP (American Society of Composers and Publishers) from 1924 to 1941. During this time he lived in Nassau, New York. The 1930 census shows him and his wife Helen (Faulkner) with two sons born around 1922 and 1924, and he was listed as a theatrical producer. Also in the house were his younger brother George, and Helen's two sisters. Gene Buck died on the west coast in 1957.
     Notable in Buck's style is the use of minimal color palettes, often leaving many elements of the cover clear or showing a single color that would define the cover. The people were consistently drawn with succinct expressions, and the artistic elements when they appeared were well-defined although simply colored and logically patterned. Many of his covers do not bear his signature, but his distinct lettering technique on the Remick issues certainly help give them away.

     Signing always as W.J. Dittmar was born February 7, 1879, to Ferdinand and Mary Dittmar of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The youngest of four boys and one girl, the future artist became a life-long resident of Williamsport. Walter received no formal artistic training other than what was taught in high school, although his father was a woodcarver, which requires some level of artisan skill. From 1904-1914 he was the primary artist for the amazingly prolific Vandersloot Music Company. Walter's parents were charter members of the First United Evangelical Church in Williamsport, and his brother William was a local woodcarver like his father, and a church worker who was in the choir and taught Sunday school. The family was heavily involved in Christian community, which brings up an enigma of sorts.
     As was expected at that time, many of the rags and song publications from Vandersloot, as well as other publishers, were steeped in ethnic stereotype. So Dittmar could turn out a beautiful landscape for a sentimental piece one week, plus attractive drawings for the Herald, yet the next week produce some blatantly offensive images for rags that even included Nigger in the title. But accounting for the environment of that era (although not so much in rural Pennsylvania), work is work, and he did it well. The 1910 census shows him as an independent artist, married to Daisy Irene Dittmar, and with two children, Irene and John. His mother, sister, and brother William lived next door at that time. His 1918 employer was shown as the local Herald Publishing House. Little had changed by 1920 as the Dittmar family seemed to all live in the same general block in Williamsport. Walter was still listed as an illustrator, although he eventually also taught art in the Williamsport school system from the 1920s to the 1940s. He further illustrated for a Williamsport-based monthly Christian magazine called the Gospel Herald, and for the Union Gospel Press of Cleveland, Ohio, from the 1910s to the 1960s, dying in 1964 at age 85. His daughter, Daisy, carried on the family tradition by teaching art in secondary schools in Williamsport.
     Of note in Dittmar's illustrations, which actually had quite a bit of variety between beautiful nature or romantic scenes and outright caricature, was his effectively sparse use of color. While it may have been a directive by Vandersloot in order to keep cover costs down, it was more likely because he was color blind, making management of multiple colors difficult at best. With just one color plus black he was able to create subtle shadings that filled out many details in a picture, even if tree leaves aren't really pale maroon. He also provided a great consistency for the Vandersloot output, much in the way that Hoen did for E.T. Paull, making the pieces from this publisher just as indentifiable without having to look for the logo. Even on covers incorporating photographs he was able to make artwork out of an otherwise stiff looking band portrait.

Many thanks for additional information and verification go to the descendants of W.J. Dittmar, historian Alec Stevens, and the Lycoming County Historical Society.

     There is very little professional or family information available on this elusive artist. Born in February, 1863 in Furth, Germany, Henry Reichard (who most often signed his work as H. Reichard) and his family immigrated to the United States in 1870. He married his wife Lena in 1886, and they soon had two daughters. By 1900 Reichard was based in St. Louis, listed as a designer. Most of his covers appear to be from publishers in that city, including many on featured items in the John Stark catalog. Henry worked well with line-shaded motifs, and appeared to be comfortable with either pencil or charcoal in his renderings laced with some watercolor. With little exception there is some form of flora or floral motif in most of his artwork, and a level of fine detail in all of it. Reichard's sheet music drawing career may have been short lived, as all of of his covers appear only in the 1910s. Reichard's brother was also an artist, and both had works featured in the famous Pan American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York in 1901, site of the assassination of then-President William McKinley. Reichard had moved to Chicago by 1920, listed as a commercial artist and living in a boarding house, with the possibility that Lena was in a hospital or hospel of some kind. By 1930 he was widowed, and rooming with Elizabeth Carter, likely his landlady. Henry died in 1946.

Many thanks for additional information and verification go to David Reichard McCusker, the Great Grandson of Henry Reichard.

     Few sheet music cover artists were able to capture the essence of beautiful women quite the way Frederick Stewart Manning was able to. He actually entered the field as a second career of sorts later than most artists, being in his 40s when his covers started appearing. Born in Michigan August 13, 1874, his family moved to Colorado Springs when he was very young, and much of his early artwork was in the field of comic panels and strips of the late 19th century. The 1900 census listed him in Denver, Colorado with wife Hattie Irene, whom he married around 1894, and son Lyle, working as a magazine artist. As his talents and experience increased, he moved first to Chicago, then to New York City in search of a more serious and profitable career in advertising artwork. He is shown in Chicago in 1910 with Hattie and sons Lyle and Thomas, listed as a portrait artist, which he also did on his 1917 draft card. After many years of creating ads, posters and promotional items for many well-known corporate clients, he decided to venture into sheet music art, which was a maturing field by the late 1910s. By 1920 he had moved to Manhattan and remarried to Josephine Manning, who like his first wife was born in Canada. This time he was listed as a landscape artist.
     While a number of artists simply followed requested ideas or even submitted their own conceptions for final use without question, Manning was always sensitive to his clients in that he wanted them to be satisfied with what he produced. Therefore, working on his experience in advertising, he would submit a watercolor draft of each concept to the publisher for selection or final approval. Then he would create his works, using paid models, in either watercolor or pastels with occasional ink highlights. He reportedly received $150 a cover for the bulk of his work in the 1920s, which although a decent wage back then is roughly only two to three times what one copy of some of his more collectible covers sell for currently.
     While much of Manning's earlier work is signed with the full signature represented above, he would occasionally use only his initials (F.S.M.), or in later years only his last name. When the demand for cover artists faded in the 1930s, he continued serious painting by public or private commission until shortly before his death in 1960. The beauty he captured in his subjects of yesteryear lives on today in vivid hues, which affirms the old saying that beauty is truly ageless.

     James Dulin was a Kansas City, Missouri native, born October 24, 1883 to James and Lillian Dulin, both Illinois transplants. He was the oldest of two boys. James was living in the same place as many fine ragtime composers like Charles N. Daniels and Charles L. Johnson, the latter of who he later did covers for. One of his first jobs at 16 was as a clerk in the local railroad office while he was finishing school. Dulin started producing sheet music covers and other art from his own studio in Illinois around 1910. Enlisted for service during World War I, he so enjoyed France that after the war he moved his art studio there along with a printing business, and remained in Europe throughout the 1920s. While there he created many fine graphics for a number of French organizations and even engaged in book illustration. Records show a couple of trips to and from France in the 1920s, and even a 1930 trip to Shanghai, China, so he was also a seasoned travler.In 1931 he reestablished himself in the U.S. where he continued to do music covers and other commercial art through the mid 1950s.
     While his earlier works referenced Dulin Studios, he later signed his works with a vertical Jamie, sometimes unobtrusively hidden within the image in the manner of Al Hirschfeld. It was reported that as late as the 1950s Dulin received perhaps $25 per cover, and often created many images for one piece to give the publisher something to choose from. He was frustrated with the non-artistic turn that covers had taken, moving to personalities and photographs with only some abstracts surrounding them. Dulin would often not know the names of the pieces he was commissioned to draw for, so would leave nonesense titles in place which the publisher would replace. The family remembers one in particular called Ixio Pontne. Other than payment for the art, he rarely received even a courtesy copy of the sheet, and his original artwork was usually kept by the publisher. Mr. Dulin died in June of 1958 in his place of retirement in Sarasota, Florida..
     In spite of the detail present in much of Dulin's work, his images remain uncluttered and to the point. Color use was kept to a simple palette (easier for printers), and each element had a clear purpose within the image, whether background or foreground. Since many of his later works went unsigned to avoid a particular conflict of interest, an accounting of his full body of covers is difficult at best.

Many thanks for additional information sent to me by Jacques Dulin of Washington, son of James Dulin.

     Clare Victor Dwiggins, a native of Clinton, Ohio, was born June 16, 1874 to Charles and Mary Dwiggins, the oldest of two boys and one girl. He was named for County Clare in Ireland and for the famed author of Les Miserables, Victor Hugo. The family moved to Wilmington soon after his birth. Working in his teens as an apprentice in an architecture firm, Dwiggins started his drawing career as a newspaper cartoonist in 1897, a time when strips were in their infancy and most cartoons were still single panel gags. Among his running features in the beginning were J. Filliken Wilberfloss, Them Was the Happy Days (nostalgia even back then) and Leap Year Lizzie. By 1900 he was living in Philadelphia and listed as an artist, recently married to his wife Betsy. When his works evolved into comic strips by the middle of the decade, Dwig, as he was nicknamed, produced the long-running and popular School Days, Ophelia Bumps and Her Slate, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and Nipper. By 1910 he was living in Manhattan, proudly listed as a newspaper cartoonist. This would coincide with the time period when publisher John Stark was also in the city, and would have commissioned the two covers of Dwig's work he featured.
     Dwig truly enjoyed life with a sense of humor and had a retreat at Canada Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, a location that became famous for many wild weekends and summer vacations, as well as a natural outdoor inspiration for his famous newspaper and author friends. Many of them enjoyed visits to his "Dwigwam" in the scenic woods. In 1920 he was found in Plainfield, New Jersey with Betsy and two children born in the 1910s. By 1930 the family had moved to more upscale Johnstown, New York. In the 1940s they moved to California where Dwig worked with the Disney studios, also illustrating children's books nearly until his death on October 26, 1958.
     Dwig freelanced now and then producing postcards among other items, as well as the occasional sheet music cover. As he often fondly remembered his in small town Wilmington, Ohio, he likely responded well to requests from Midwest publishers composers for custom work. Some of his later works, such as an illustrated version of Tom Sawyer and the exploits of a character simply named Bill sold very well and are highly collectible today. On the covers that are shown here, note Dwig's since of whimsy mixed with madcap creativity.

     Being the type of person who wants to be pretty good at everything rather than regarded the best at any one thing, and also because I like having my hands on every possible aspect of what I do, I slowly became involved in producing cover art for my own music. Initially the artistic production was limited to cassette covers in the 1980s, some done on one of the early models of the Macintosh computer. But as the tools became more sophisticated, I found that I was able to produce interesting cassette/CD covers as well as those for sheet music. Once computer generated (CG) art became a legitimate form both in movies and in real world graphics, I felt less inhibited about my manual drawing limitations and was able to exercise some freedom in creating relevant covers with a modicum of confidence. I then set out to slowly recapture the art of producing sheet music covers.
     Somewhere along the way, likely during the 1930s, photographically produced covers became cheaper to produce than those with colorful cover art. For starters, many more people were able to take photographs than those who possessed the talent to draw or paint relevant artwork. Then there is the factor of celebrity endorsement, which photography best represented. By the 1970s. a larger number of covers were regressing back to text-only format with minimal or no art at all. So when I started producing ragtime covers I did it within the capabilities of the tools I had. The initial covers were plays on the ubiquitous G. Schirmer yellow books with some minor alterations. The Hanon Rag and Ragtime Nocturne logically fit into this mold. But when the titles became more descriptive, I figured that some kind of artwork was necessary. In the case of Pride of the Prairie, Ragtime Bobolink (by Joseph Lamb), Snuggle Pup (by George L. Cobb) and The Ragtime Pamela, I turned photographs into a mix of watercolor and pastels in an attempt to create something that looked painted or drawn. For The Necromancer, I was fortunate to have an appropriate drawing given to me by noted artist and former Washington Redskin George Nock, which I incorporated with a custom text logo. The Wiener Schnitzel Rag is an attempt at cartoon watercolor, and was done by hand. Ragapples was also rendered by a number of painting and computer generated techniques from individually photographed or scanned elements. As my skills increase in both manual and computer art I am sure that future covers will be more adventurous, and will hopefully recapture to some extent those days when cover art was a prominent feature or enhancement of sheet music.

As America entered World War One (then called The Great War) in 1917, the U.S. Government asked all industries creating consumable products with valuable materials, including paper, to cut back on those materials. In the case of sheet music, this meant not only changing the size of the music from the large 10" x 13.5" format to the now common 9" x 12" format (and even smaller sheets during the war in some cases), but also condensing four pages of music into two, and shrinking the cover art as well. In many cases, including the fabulous Paull covers, it meant using a smaller color palette to conserve ink. While this change not as drastic as the migration from 12" album covers to 5" CD covers, it still had some impact on how art was realized on sheet music covers.

E.T. Paull died at the end of 1924 shortly after copyrighting his last piece, Spirit of the U.S.A.. One additional work, Top Of The World was published after his death complete with the trademark cover in glorious color. Still, the end of the era of E.T. Paull, coupled with the format size and advancements in photographic printing, also marked the end of the cornucopia of fabulous covers as the trend shifted more towards celebrity pictures, standardized pictures or patterns, and sparser art. Some of this change reflects the financial ravages of the great depression of the 1930s, but much of it was a move to cut overall costs and production time as well as streamlining appearances as music consumer tastes matured. There was also increased sensitivity to racial stereotyping and gross caricature. While the Starmers, Leff and others continued to produce covers, they were engaged more in design than full-fledged art. Entertainment interest had shifted towards player pianos, sound recordings, radio, movies, and the combination of sound and pictures in 1928. While there are a few worthy pieces from the 1930s on, most are more in the style of poster art with subdued colors on coated papers. As much as the golden days of ragtime, radio, television, and even rock and roll are gone in these days of techno-everything, we should as much recognize the golden age of sheet music as a whole, not just the covers. But wasn't it fun just the same?

So if you're going through a box in Grandma's attic, visiting an out-of-the-way antique mall, or attending an auction just for fun, don't ignore that pile or box of sheet music over there since there are likely a few treasures within. If you don't want it, then at least tell me about it. Somebody's got to preserve this bit of Americana! And I don't mind. Really!