Irv Docktor


Irving Seidmon Docktor was an American artist and educator best known for his work as a book and magazine illustrator in the 1950s and 1960s. An early work on the history of paperbacks identified Docktor and Edward Gorey as executing some of the most interesting and appealing cover designs in the field.

Early life

Irving Seidmon Docktor was born and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, and won a scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. A weight lifter in his youth, Docktor performed in walk-on roles with Mary Binney Montgomery's ballet troupe while he was in college as a supernumerary actor, a job he obtained one day while sketching the dancers during their rehearsal. When Docktor noticed the male lead had trouble lifting his partner, he stepped in and was offered a position on the spot.

Career

Illustration

After graduating from art school, Docktor entered the army and was trained in photography. During World War II, he served as an aerial photographer in a map-making unit in the Technical Intelligence Team based in Australia and the Philippines. The sketches he made during this period served as visual referents for some of his later work, such as his illustrations for a book We Were There At The Battle For Bataan by Benjamin Appel.

Fine art

During this period, Docktor also pursued a separate career as a fine artist. A mural commission in 1960 led him to relocate temporarily from Fort Lee, New Jersey, to New York City, and eventually to shift his emphasis from commercial illustration. By the late 1960s he had refocused on fine art, exhibiting paintings in numerous galleries and art shows in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. In additions to landscapes and nudes, Docktor also returned repeatedly to a sequence of paintings he called the "Heritage series," featuring juxtaposed figures and faces from village life in the old world. “With technical perfection, the mystic characteristics and pathos give his art an exquisite, aesthetic quality,” remarked one reviewer in 1963.
Docktor taught part-time at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. At age 60, he began teaching full-time at the High School of Art and Design in New York City, his first full-time job, which he held for 15 years.

Personal life

Docktor married Mildred Sylvia Himmelstein.
In 1957, Docktor lived in a home overlooking the Hudson River. After receiving a commission in 1960 to do murals in New York City, he spent most of his time there. In 1975, they moved back to Fort Lee, New Jersey. They frequently went to museums, the theatre, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. During performances, Docktor sketched what he was seeing in his copy of Playbill.
Docktor died February 14, 2008.

Published works

Books

  • Clark Gavin, Foul, False, and Infamous: Famous Libel and Slander Cases of History
  • Patricia Highsmith,
  • Selwyn Jepson,
  • Theodora DuBois,
  • Christiana Brand,
  • David William Meredith ,
  • Jessamyn West,
  • Ed Lacy,
  • Leigh Brackett,
  • Lucile Iremonger,
  • Ruth Adams Knight, First the Lightning
  • Ullin W. Leavell, Mary Louise Friebele, Tracie Cushman, Paths to Follow
  • J. T. McIntosh, Rule of the Pagbeasts
  • Sylvia Tate, The Fuzzy
  • Anon. , : A Novel
  • Carl Carmer,
  • Booton Herndon, Bergdorf's in the Plaza
  • Norman Dale, The Casket and the Sword
  • Nora Benjamin Kubie, King Solomon's Horses
  • Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens
  • John P. Marquand, The Late George Apley
  • Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli
  • Norman Douglas, South Wind
  • John Steinbeck, The Wayward Bus
  • Herman Melville, Typee
  • Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Benjamin Appel, We Were There in the Klondike Gold Rush
  • W. R. Burnett, Pale Moon
  • Leonard Bishop, Creep Into Thy Narrow Bed
  • Erskine Caldwell, Georgia Boy
  • Erskine Caldwell, God's Little Acre
  • Erskine Caldwell, The Sure Hand of God
  • Erskine Caldwell, Tobacco Road
  • Erskine Caldwell, Tragic Ground
  • Maria Bellonci, The Life And Times of Lucrezia Borgia
  • Zsolt de Harsanyi, The Star-Gazer
  • Mary Freeman, D. H. Lawrence: A Basic Study of His Ideas
  • Herman Melville, The Shorter Novels
  • Lloyd Lewis, Myths after Lincoln
  • Henrik Ibsen, Four Plays of Henrik Ibsen
  • Benjamin Appel, We Were There at the Battle for Bataan
  • William Goldman, The Temple of Gold
  • Ercole Patti, A Roman Affair
  • Vinnie Williams, The Fruit Tramp
  • Francis Steegmuller, Maupassant: A Lion on the Path
  • James Mitchell, The Lady is Waiting
  • Elizabeth Cadell, Shadows on the Water
  • Marjorie G. Fribourg, Benkei the Boy-Giant
  • Marjorie G. Fribourg, Bimo: Young Hero of Japan
  • Ben Botkin and Carl Withers, The Illustrated Book of American Folklore
  • Richard Bissell, Say, Darling
  • Monica Stirling, Sigh for a Strange Land
  • John Coates, The Widow’s Tale
  • Pauline Rush Evans, Good Housekeeping's Best Book of Mystery Stories
  • Lillian and Godfrey Frankel, A Scrapbook of Real-Life Stories for Young People
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery of the Vanishing Stamp
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at the Haunted House
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at Plum Nelly
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at Fearsome Lake
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at Rock City
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at the Snowed-In Cabin
  • Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West, Mystery at the Echoing Cave
  • John Dickson Carr, Scandal at High Chimneys
  • General de Caulaincourt, With Napoleon in Russia
  • August Strindberg, Letters of Strindberg to Harriet Bosse
  • Margery Sharp, The Eye Of Love
  • James Wellard, The Affair In Arcady
  • Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture: A Unique View of the Individual in His Society
  • Willa Gibbs, The Dedicated: A Novel of Two Doctors
  • Julian Mayfield, The Hit
  • Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
  • Francoise des Ligneris, Psyche 59
  • Francoise des Ligneris, Fort Frederick
  • Helen McCloy, The Slayer and the Slain
  • Muse A. Norcross, Li-Ho of the Boat People
  • Alexander Rose, Four Horse Players are Missing
  • Charmian Clift, Walk to the Paradise Gardens
  • Alice Ekert-Rotholz, A Net of Gold
  • Murray Gitlin, All the Voices
  • Louis Vaczek, The Troubadour
  • Marjorie Vetter, Journey for Jennifer
  • Edgar Allan Poe, Ten Great Mysteries, ed. Groff Conklin
  • Edgar Allan Poe, Eight Tales of Terror
  • Lawrence Williams, The Fiery Furnace
  • Jose Luis De Vilallonga, The Man of Blood
  • Peter Elstob, Warriors for the Working Day
  • Guy de Maupassant, Contes Choisis
  • Elliott Arnold, Brave Jimmy Stone
  • Ervin Seale, Learn to Live: The Meaning of the Parables
  • Anne Colver, Abraham Lincoln for the People
  • Philip Van Doren Stern, Great Ghost Stories
  • Mary MacEwan, ed., Stories of Suspense
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Podkayne of Mars
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Farnham's Freehold
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Orphans of the Sky
  • Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • Robert Arthur, Ghosts and More Ghosts
  • Roger Fulford, George the Fourth
  • Dorothy M. Fraser, Discovering Our World's History
  • Charlotte Jay, A Hank of Hair
  • Oscar Pinkus, Friends & Lovers
  • Alan Riefe, Tales of Horror
  • James Blish, Mission to the Heart Stars
  • Jakov Lind, Soul of Wood and Other Stories
  • Daoma Winston, The Wakefield Witches
  • Laura Duchamp, Duet
  • Record albums
  • Ellabelle Davis, Ellabelle Davis Sings Negro Spirituals
  • Prince Onago & Princess Muana & Native Drummers of the Belgian Congo: The Drums of Africa
  • Djamal Aslan, Lebanon: Her Heart, Her Sounds
  • Nina Dova, Child of the Sun: Songs from the Torrid Zone
  • Enrico Simonetti Orchestra, Bravissimo!
  • Hugo Montenegro with 20th Century Strings, 20th Century Strings, Volume 1
  • Glenn Miller & His Orchestra, Original Film Soundtracks, Volume 1
  • Glenn Miller & His Orchestra, Original Film Soundtracks, Volume 2
  • Tommy Dorsey and His Greatest Band Vol. 1
  • Tommy Dorsey and His Greatest Band Vol. 2
  • Woof Whistler & His Terriers, "Woof"
  • Al Martino, Al Martino
  • The Dixie Double-Cats, Is It True What They Say About Dixie?
  • The Dew Drops, Rain
  • Art Tatum, Discoveries
  • Hugo Montenegro with 20th Century Strings, Great Standards: The 20th Century Strings, Volume 3
  • Art Tatum, Piano Discoveries
  • Jon Ern and the Olympic Festival Orchestra, Songs of the Olympic Years
  • Harry Simeone Chorale, The Little Drummer Boy
  • Harry Fryer and His Orchestra, March Medley
  • Richard Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6
  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9
  • Serendipity Singers, Love Is a State of Mind

Magazines

  • Ace
  • All Girls
  • Amazing
  • Applause
  • Boy's Life
  • Calling All Girls
  • Cavalcade"
  • Children's Digest
  • Christian Herald
  • Collier's
  • Compact
  • Coronet
  • Creepy
  • Escapade
  • Every Woman
  • Family Weekly
  • Galaxy Science Fiction
  • Gent
  • Gourmet
  • Harpers
  • Hi-Life
  • High
  • House Beautiful
  • Life Magazine
  • Management Review
  • Mineral Digest
  • Monsieur
  • Nugget
  • Pageant
  • Parent's Magazine
  • Playboy
  • Redbook
  • Rex
  • The Saint Mystery Magazine
  • Snowflake
  • Suburbia
  • Tween
  • Westminster
  • Women of Italy
  • Women of the Orient
  • Young Americans