Howard L. Fogg

Howard Lockhart Fogg (April 7, 1917 – October 1, 1996) was an American artist specializing in railroad art.

Margot Fogg and Howard Fogg. 1990 photo by Richard Fogg.
Denver and Rio Grande Western No. 3707 along the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. Oil painting by Howard Fogg courtesy of Richard Fogg.
Denver & Salt Lake Railroad passenger train exiting a snow shed at the top of Rollins Pass, Colorado. Watercolor painting by Howard Fogg courtesy of Richard Fogg.

Early life

Howard Fogg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 7, 1917. Raised in Wilmette, Illinois, his love of railroading came from his father, a VP of the Litchfield & Madison Railroad. After graduating from New Trier High School in 1934, and with honors from Dartmouth College in 1938 with a B.A. in English Literature, he enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, intending to pursue a career in political cartooning.[1]

Fighter Pilot

Drafted into the Army in 1941, Howard transferred to the Army Air Corps and received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant with pilot's wings in November, 1942. On April 10, 1943 he married Margot Dethier, daughter of the Belgian classical violinist Edouard Dethier, and that October Howard sailed for England, assigned to the 359th Fighter Group,[2] USAAF Station 133 in East Wretham. As chronicled in the book Fogg in the Cockpit,[3] he flew 76 combat missions in P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs and was awarded the Air Medal with three clusters and the Distinguished Flying Cross with one cluster.

Association with ALCO

After his Honorable Discharge in August, 1945, family friend and famed pollster Elmo Roper introduced Howard to Duncan Fraser, President of the American Locomotive Company (ALCO). Fraser hired Howard as company artist in March, 1946. That September, at an ALCO gala at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, Howard met Lucius Beebe, a journalist with the New York Herald-Tribune. Beebe planned to write a series of railroad books, and in 1947 his book, Mixed Train Daily, was the first of many to use a Fogg painting on the cover.[4] Over the next 40 years, many other distinguished railroad authors also commissioned art from him.[5]

Another attendee, John W. Barriger III, would prove to be even more influential in the development of Howard's career. Barriger, then President of the Monon Railroad, was renowned for his ability to turn around failing railroads. Barriger and Fogg established both a business relationship and a lifelong friendship. Barriger commissioned seventeen paintings while President of the Monon and continued to order paintings as he moved to The Pittsburg & Lake Erie, the Rock Island, and other railroads. With an ever increasing number of commissions from railroads, authors, individuals and industrial firms, Fogg ended his formal agreement with ALCO in 1957, although he continued to receive commissions from them for a number of years.

Move to Colorado and his later career

In 1955, Howard, Margot, and their three sons moved to Boulder, Colorado. Howard and Ed Trumble became close friends, and over the years he created more than 70 paintings for Trumble's Leanin' Tree Publishing line of greeting cards.[6]

Howard produced four LP records of steam locomotives using recordings he made between 1955 and 1960, releasing them on his own imprint Howard Fogg Recordings. They were later reissued by another Boulder company, Owl Records, run by local conservationist Oakleigh Thorne.[7][8]

Over the decades magazines featured Fogg and his work.[9] Limited edition prints were issued. Calendars and postcards [10] as well as catalogues used his artwork.[11] Books were written about him and his work, including Fogg and Steam by Frank Clodfelter,[12] Howard Fogg and the Diesel Image by John J. Scala,[13] The Railroad Artistry of Howard Fogg by Ronald C. Hill and Al Chione,[14] and Fogg in the Cockpit by Richard and Janet Fogg.[15]

Whereas his earlier work was almost exclusively in watercolor and primarily for corporations, in later years he worked in both watercolor and oil, with individuals becoming a significant source of commissions. As his fame and reputation grew he had a waiting list measured in years, and he continued to paint until his death in 1996. Per his request his sons scattered his ashes along the Union Pacific railroad tracks on Sherman Hill in Wyoming.

Howard Fogg is often referred to as the dean of American railroad artists. He said of himself that he wasn't an artist who painted trains, but a railroader with a paintbrush, and his love of trains is reflected in his work. Many of the artists that preceded him used exaggerated colors and proportions to emphasize the power and drama of a locomotive. Fogg broke with that tradition and became known for his startling accuracy and realism. He would ensure that every detail was correct, yet his work lost none of the drama and excitement of his predecessors.

References
  1. Example of Howard Fogg's political cartoons: http://fogginthecockpit.blogspot.com/2012/02/it-wont-be-long-now.html
  2. 359th Fighter Group, 1943-1945, https://www.facebook.com/pages/359th-Fighter-Group-1943-1945/120987634620533
  3. Fogg, Richard and Janet, Fogg in the Cockpit - Master Railroad Artist, World War II Fighter Pilot (2011, Casemate Publishing ISBN 1612000045)
  4. Beebe, Lucius and Charles Clegg. Mixed Train Daily. 1947. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.). Fogg also has paintings in other Beebe books. See Beebe, Lucius and Clegg, Charles, "Steamcars to the Comstock," (1957, Howell-North)(2 paintings); Beebe, Lucius, "20th Century" (1962, Howell-North)(jacket illustration); Beebe, Lucius and Clegg, Charles, "The Trains We Rode, Volume 1" (1965, Howell-North)(5 paintings); Beebe, Lucius and Clegg, Charles, "The Trains We Rode, Volume 2" (1966, Howell-North)(2 paintings); Beebe, Lucius, "Two Trains to Remember: The New England Limited and the Air Line Limited" (1965, Privately printed)(1 painting); Beebe, Lucius and Clegg, Charles, "When Beauty Rode the Rails" (1962, Doubleday & Co.)(jacket illustration).
  5. See, e.g., Hilton, George W., "The Ma & Pa: A History of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad," (cover)(1963, Howell-North); Crossen, Forest, "The Switzerland Trail of America" (cover and four illustrations)(1962, Pruett Press); Wagner, F. Hol, "The Colorado Road," (1970, National Railway Historical Society); Collias, Joe. G., "The Search for Steam" (cover)(1972, Howell-North Books)(ISBN 9780831070922); King, Frank, "The Missabe Road...The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway," p. 152 (1972, Golden West Books)(ISBN 9780870950407) King, LeRoy O., "100 Years of Capital Traction: The Story of Streetcars in the Nations Capital," (frontispiece)(1972, LeRoy O. King, Jr.); Gjevre, John A., "Saga of the Soo: West From Shoreham," (frontispiece for 1973 and 1990 editions)(privately published); Rosenberg, Ron and Archer, Eric H., "Norfolk & Western Steam The Last 25 Years," (cover)(1973, Quadrant Press)(ISBN 0915276003); Stagner, Lloyd E., "Steam Locomotives of the Frisco Line," (cover)(1976, Pruett Publications)(ISBN 0871080974); MacGregor, Bruce A. and Benson, Ted, "Portrait of a Silver Lady: The Train They Called The California Zephyr," (cover)(1977, Pruett Publishing Co.)(ISBN 0871085097); Ferrell, Mallory Hope, "Silver San Juan: The Rio Grande Southern" (cover) (1977, Pruett Press Inc.)(ISBN 0871080575); Wagner, F. Hol, "Union Pacific Motive Power 1968-77," (cover)(1978, Motive Power Services); Wood, Charles and Wood, Dorothy, "The Great Northern Railway," p.427 &493 (1979, Pacific Fast Mail); Olmsted, Robert P., "Prairie Rails," (cover) (1979, Macmillan Publications) (ISBN 0934228027); Olmsted, Robert P., "Milwaukee Rails" (cover) (1980)(ISBN 0934228043); Stagner, Lloyd E., "Rock Island Motive Power, 1933-1955," (cover)(1980, Calvert Systems)(ISBN 9780965027205); Walker, Chard, "Chard Walker's Cajon: Rail Passage to the Pacific" (cover)(1985, Trans-Anglo Books); Grenard, Ross G., "Requiem for the Narrow Gauge" (cover)(1985, Railhead Publications); "Colorado Rail Annual No. 17"(1987, Colorado Railroad Museum)(ISBN 0918654173)(cover and two paintings inside); LeMassena, Robert A., "American Steam, Volume 2: Locomotive of the Northeast," (cover)(1989, Sundance Books); Worley, Howard V. and Poellot, William N., "The Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway: The Story of the High and Dry,"(cover)(1989, Withers Publishing); Ferrell, Mallory Hope, "The Gilpin Gold Tram," (1992, Heimburger House)(ISBN 0911581251)(cover). He also contributed an introduction to Ronald G. Hill's "Rails in the Northwest: A Contemporary Glimpse," (1978, Colorado Railroad Museum).
  6. Leanin' Tree Publishing http://www.leanintree.com/
  7. "Boulder's nature boy". Boulder Weekly. Boulder Weekly. 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  8. Thorne, Oakleigh II (February 22, 1994). "Oral History -- February 22 1994" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Marvin Woolf. Boulder, Colorado: Boulder Public Library. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  9. Flanary, Ron. "Howard Fogg: 1917-1996" Trains Magazine, December 1996. Rose, Ted. "Howard Fogg: (1917-1966)" Railfan and Railroad, January 1997. Schur, Zeke. "Top Train Artist on Right Track," The Denver Post, March 8, 1983.
  10. His "Big Boy 4-8-8-4 Union Pacific Heads West Over Sherman Hill in 1953" was included in "Trains: Postcard Book" (ISBN 0449905829). Examples of P&LE postcards by Howard Fogg can be found at: http://www.silogic.com/trains/P&LE%20Postcards%20by%20Howard%20Fogg.html
  11. Cover of Custom Brass NJ catalog, First Edition (undated), showing Fogg's "The Olympian Hiawatha in the Cascades."; covers of Pacific Fast Mail catalogs, 8th and 9th editions.
  12. Clodfelter, Frank, Fogg and Steam (A Regional Look At Steam In North America) Pruett Pub Co, May 1978 ISBN 978-0-87108-522-1,
  13. Scala, John, Howard Fogg and the Diesel Image: A Color Compilation of Choice Diesel Locomotive Renditions from Americas Foremost Railroad Illustrator. Weekend Chief Pub Co May 1987 ISBN 978-0-9612814-1-0
  14. Hill, Ronald, and Chione, Al, The Railroad Artistry of Howard Fogg Cedco Publishing Company Sept 1999 ISBN 978-0-7683-2112-8
  15. Fogg, Richard and Janet, Fogg in the Cockpit Casemate Publishers 2011 ISBN 978-1-61200-004-6

Bibliography
  • Clodfelter, Frank, Fogg and Steam (A Regional Look At Steam In North America) Pruett Pub Co, May 1978 ISBN 978-0-87108-522-1
  • Fogg, Richard & Janet, Fogg in the Cockpit: Howard Fogg-Master Railroad Artist, World War II Fighter Pilot. Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, July 2011 ISBN 978-1-61200-004-6
  • Hill, Ronald, and Chione, Al, The Railroad Artistry of Howard Fogg Cedco Publishing Company Sept 1999 ISBN 978-0-7683-2112-8
  • Scala, John, Howard Fogg and the Diesel Image: A Color Compilation of Choice Diesel Locomotive Renditions from Americas Foremost Railroad Illustrator. Weekend Chief Pub Co May 1987 ISBN 978-0-9612814-1-0
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