A Look at the Artist - Stevan Dohanos (film series from the Famous Artists School)

A native of Lorain, Ohio, Stevan Dohanos was the third of nine children born to Hungarian immigrants. An admirer of Norman Rockwell from an early age, Dohanos’ artistic talents were first noticed when he would recreate Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers in crayon and sell them to co-workers at the steel mill where he worked. After attending art school and an early career in art advertising, Dohanos went on to become one of the Post’s most popular artists, appearing on its cover 123 times.

Dohanos’ realistic style has often been compared to, and confused with, Norman Rockwell’s. Like Rockwell, Dohanos used friends and neighbors to depict scenes from everyday life. The town of Westport, Connecticut, where Dohanos lived beginning in the early 1940’s, became as important a character in his paintings as the models he selected to appear in them. Westport was the perfect backdrop on which to illustrate quintessential New England life, both the inspiring and the mundane.

Along with Norman Rockwell and 10 other artists, Dohanos was a founding member of the Famous Artists School, a hugely popular commercial art correspondence course created in 1948. Aside from his associations with the Famous Artists School and the Saturday Evening Post, Dohanos was well-known for his work for the U.S. Postal Service. He designed more than 46 individual stamps, and later in his career as Chairman of the National Stamp Advisory Committee, he oversaw and selected the artwork for more than 300 others. In recognition of his work, the Postal Service’s “Hall of Stamps” in Washington, D.C. was dedicated in his honor.

*Thanks to Magdalen and Robert Livesey, former owners of the Famous Artists School, for the donation of these photos and many other items, to the Norman Rockwell Museum.