Edwin George Lutz was an American artist and author. As an illustrator, he contributed cartoons and human interest articles illustrated with his drawings to several magazines and newspapers. Under the name E.G. Lutz, he authored 17 books. Most were how-to manuals dealing with art and drawing techniques, but two were about aspects of the film industry, which was rapidly developing in the early years of the 20th century. One of his most popular books was Drawing Made Easy, which was written for young artists. Perhaps his most influential work was Animated Cartoons, the first book to describe what were then state-of-the-art animation techniques. A 19-year-old Walt Disney discovered the book at his local library and used it as a guide during his first years in his animation career.
Life and career
Early life
Lutz was born August 26, 1868, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to German immigrants John Martin Lutz and Anna Ernestine Bachman Lutz. He was the oldest of four children. His siblings were William Florence Lutz, Flora Johanna Lutz Wiegandt and Ernest Martin Lutz. His parents died of tuberculosis within a year of each other, and the siblings were split up and raised by different families in 1879. Edwin and his brother William were raised on a farm in Palmyra, NJ, while Flora and Ernest grew up in the homes of aunts and uncles in the Philadelphia area. At the age of 11, Lutz was enrolled in the boarding schoolNazareth Hall, a "classical academy" where music, drawing, painting, French, Latin, and Greek were taught. When he was 17, he became a student at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia, PA. The curriculum focused on drawing and sculpture. In this school, he studied under Thomas Eakins, a realist painter that has prominence as an important artist in American art history.
Marriage
Lutz married Eleanor Ludlam Dangler in Philadelphia on June 8, 1892. Eleanor was a milliner and the owner of the Mme Eleanor Hat Co. in New York, NY. Based on census records, the couple were divorced sometime between 1920 and 1930. The couple did not have children.
Artist career
As a cartoonist and illustrator, Lutz met with early success and his work appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including: The Monthly Illustrator, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper - The World, Life, Country Life, The Cosmopolitan, Century Magazine, St. Nicholas magazine, The Sun, New York Tribune, Satire, The Seattle Intelligencer's Book of Magic and The Washington Times. Many of his illustrations and cartoons included anthropomorphized animals, food, and early optical toys. In 1900, at the age of 32, Lutz attended the Académie Julian in Paris, France, a private school for painting and sculpture.
Publishing career
Lutz published 17 books from the 1913 through 1936, under the name E.G. Lutz. His first work, What to Draw and How to Draw It, was published in 1913 by Dodd, Mead & Company. The book, which was created for the beginning drawer, consists of sequenced illustrations that provide step-by-step instructions on how to sketch figures. This book and Drawing Made Easy, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1921, grew out of work Lutz created for a series of newspaper articles published in The Sun in 1912. Drawing Made Easy was Lutz's most popular book and was reprinted through the 1970s. In it, Lutz taught a method of drawing based on the technique used in French art schools in the 19th century: begin with large basic forms and progressively refine them by adding smaller shapes and detail. At the age of 52, Lutz wrote his most influential book, Animated Cartoons - How they are made, their origin and development,. The book offered practical ideas for streamlining the production of animated drawings. While a few articles and books on animation mentioned studio practices before Animated Cartoons, this was the first book dedicated to the subject. The book affected an entire industry in the formative years of animation studios. At the age of 19, Walt Disney borrowed Animated Cartoons from the Kansas City Library shortly after the book was published in 1920. It is well documented that Animated Cartoons greatly influenced him in his early years in animation. The book was one of the primary animation guides used by Disney's Laugh-O-Grams studio team in Kansas City, Missouri, throughout the 1920s. Referring to Animated Cartoons, Disney himself has stated that "Finding that book was one of the most important and useful events in my life."
