Neysa McMein - Gifted Gallery

Neysa Moran McMein, born Marjorie Frances McMein 24 January 1888, was an American illustrator and portrait painter.

McMein was born in Quincy, Illinois, the daughter of Harry Moran and Isabelle Parker McMein. Harry McMein was a reporter before he worked for the McMein Publishing Company, a family business.

McMein had musical, acting, and artistic talent. After graduating with honours in 1907 from the Quincy High School, she attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. McMein worked at a large millinery firm, where she became lead designer. In the early 1910s, she moved to New York City and after a brief stint as an actress in several of Paul Armstrong's plays, she turned to commercial art. On the advice of a numerologist, she adopted the name Neysa. McMein studied at the Art Students League of New York in 1914.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Art Students League of New York

She began her career as an illustrator and during World War I, she traveled across France entertaining military troops with Anita P. Wilcox and Jane Bulley and made posters to support the war effort. She was made an honorary non-commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps for her contributions to the war effort.

Neysa McMein

McMein—described as a tall, athletic, grave, and beautiful red-head—became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table set, formed after the end of the war. Her West 57th Street studio in New York City became an "outpost" to the Algonquin Hotel, which appealed to the "Bohemian" nature of its members, which included Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Edna Ferber, Irving Berlin, Robert Sherwood, Franklin Pierce Adams, Robert Benchley, Alice Duer Miller, Harpo Marx, and Jascha Heifetz.

McMein became a successful illustrator of magazine covers, advertisements, and magazine articles for national publications, like McClure's, The Saturday Evening Post, and Collier's. McMein created the portrait of a fictional housewife "Betty Crocker" for General Mills.

From 1923 through 1937, McMein created all of McCall's covers. She also supplied work to National Geographic, Woman's Home Companion, and Photoplay.

She created advertising graphics for Cadillac, Lucky Strike cigarettes and Palmolive soap.

McMein designed silk textiles in the mid-1920s, three examples of which are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In December 1929, she consulted with Studebaker's design department, with five other women artists and decorators

In April 1938, McCall's Magazine did not renew McMein's contract to produce illustrations for the magazine. McMein entered the field of portraiture, at first using pastels to depict Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Helen Hayes. She painted portraits of presidents Herbert Hooverand Warren G. Harding, author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and actors Charlie Chaplin and Beatrice Lillie. McMein also painted Katharine Cornell, Kay Francis, Janet Flanner, Dorothy Thompson, Anatole France, Charles Evans Hughes and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. She mentored photographer Lee Miller.

In 1923 McMein had married John G. Baragwanath, a mining engineer and author, whom she met at a party given by Irene Castle. McMein and Baragwanath had a daughter Joan in 1924. She hosted parties with games for adults to entertain artists, writers, actors and other celebrities. Her guests—including Bing Crosby, Anne Shirley, Robert Young, and Bennett Cerf—engaged in games like a quick fire, multiple team version of charades called "The Game", that is sometimes attributed to McMein. McMein and the games that she employed at her parties were featured in a Life magazine article in 1946.

McMein died of cancer on 12 May 1949, in New York City and was survived by daughter Joan and her husband John Baragwanath. In her will, McMein bequeathed monies to purchase works of arts annually by the Whitney Museum of American Art. The museum bought 72 purchases from 1956. She was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 1984, 35 years after her death. McMein was one of 20 Society of Illustrators' artists to have their work published on a United States Postal Service Collectible Stamp sheet in 2001.

---

---

Reading Recommendations & Content Considerations

Anything Goes

The Adventures of Neysa McMein

Brian Gallagher