Elmer Simms Campbell (1906–1971): Pioneering African-American Cartoonist and Cultural Icon

Elmer Simms Campbell, known by his artistic moniker E. Simms Campbell, was a trailblazing American commercial artist born on January 2, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri. He left an indelible mark as the first African-American cartoonist to be published in nationally distributed, slick magazines. Campbell’s artistic prowess is best exemplified by his creation of Esky, the iconic pop-eyed mascot of Esquire magazine. His life’s journey, from January 2, 1906, to January 27, 1971, is a narrative of talent, resilience, and cultural significance that shaped the landscape of American cartooning.

He briefly attended various schools, including Lewis Institute (Chicago), University of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Academy of Design (New York), and Art Students League (New York). Drew caricatures while a waiter on a dining car in St. Louis, 1920s; hired by Triad Studios in St. Louis, c.1927; found work in a New York advertising studio, c 1929; began working for Esquire,1933; also contributed to Cosmopolitan, Red Book, The New Yorker, Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, College Humor, Playboy, Opportunity, Life, and Judge.

Early Life and Education

Elmer Simms Campbell was born to educators Elizabeth Simms Campbell and Elmer Campbell in St. Louis, Missouri. His father, a former track and football star at Howard University, passed away when Campbell was just four years old. Following this tragedy, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois, where she pursued studies at the University of Chicago. Campbell attended Englewood Technical Prep Academy in Chicago, where his artistic talent blossomed as he served as the high school’s weekly newspaper cartoonist. Notably, the paper was edited by Seymour Berkson, who would later become the general manager of the International News Service.

Despite enrolling initially at the University of Chicago, Campbell redirected his academic path and graduated from the Chicago Art Institute after transferring. This pivotal decision set the stage for his future endeavors as a celebrated cartoonist.

Selected awards: 

He held honorary degrees from Lincoln and Wilberforce universities.

the manager of Triad Studios, J. P. Sauerwein. Triad was one of the largest commercial art studios in the Midwest, located in St. Louis. Campbell was hired. While his wages were better than those of most young men in their twenties, and his job was secure, he continued to have a tenacious yearning to do magazine illustrations, covers, cartoons, and caricatures. Campbell worked for Triad for a year and a half, then went to New York City to try his luck as a freelance cartoonist.

Campbell found a job in a New York advertising studio, earning about one-eighth of his St. Louis salary. He also sold gags to other artists, sometimes 50 per week. He enrolled in the Academy of Design to increase his technical knowledge, and he studied at the Art Students League under the noted artist and printmaker George Grosz. Soon, Campbell contacted Ed Graham, a friend from Chicago who also worked on The Phoenix.

Graham had become one of the most notable cartoonists in the United States and regularly contributed to humorous magazines. Graham promised to help him achieve his dreams because he was impressed with Campbell’s work. With Graham’s counsel, Campbell could show his work to the editors and make his first sales.

Campbell’s covers in Opportunity were eye-catching, original, lifelike, and genuine. At Christmas of 1930, he had covers on both Life and Judge; during Christmas of 1931, he designed the cover of Judge. Sometime in the early 1930s, after Campbell had become a well-established cartoonist, he and entertainer Cab Calloway met at the Dunbar Apartments in Harlem. After that, the Campbell and Calloway families became friends.

In Of Minnie the Moocher and Me, Calloway wrote about the close friendship the two men established. Calloway asserted, “He was also, like me, a hard worker, a hard drinker, and a high liver. I used to think that I worked hard… But Campbell outdid me. He drew a cartoon a day, not little line drawings, but full watercolor cartoons.” The two men frequented the Harlem after-hours joints like the Rhythm Club, drank, and enjoyed each other’s company until the following day. “Somebody would get us home and pour us into bed, and we’d be back at it again the next night,” Calloway recalled.

Professional Career

Campbell’s journey into the world of commercial art commenced during a job as a railroad dining-car waiter. His knack for drawing caricatures of train passengers caught the eye of an individual who recognized his talent, leading to a position at Triad Studios, a St. Louis art studio. After two years honing his skills at Triad Studios, Campbell moved to New York City in 1929.

In the bustling artistic environment of New York, Campbell found employment with the small advertising firm Munig Studios. 

Simultaneously, he pursued further artistic development by taking National Academy of Design classes. This period began Campbell’s contributions to various magazines, including notable publications like Life and Judge.

Encouraged by fellow cartoonist Russell Patterson, Campbell focused on “good girl art.” This shift in focus gave birth to his acclaimed series of watercolor cartoons titled “Harem Girls,” which debuted in the inaugural issue of Esquire in 1933. Campbell’s artistic brilliance became a staple in Esquire, gracing almost every issue from 1933 to 1958. He also pivotally created Esquire’s enduring mascot – a cartoon character donning a silk top hat.

In addition to Esquire, Campbell’s artistic contributions extended to various publications, including The Chicagoan, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, The New Yorker, Playboy, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Pictorial Review, and Redbook. His commercial artwork adorned advertisements for prominent brands such as Barbasol, Springmaid, and Hart Schaffner & Marx.

Beyond his visual artistry, Campbell showcased his literary talents by contributing a chapter on blues music to the 1939 book “Jazzmen,” a seminal study of jazz’s history and development.

Cartoonist

E. Simms Campbell was the first African American artist hired by a national publication, Esquire magazine, and the first black syndicated cartoonist. While he is perhaps best known for his voluptuous enchantresses and “Esky”—the white-mustachioed, bulging-eyed connoisseur of feminine pulchritude-featured in Esquire, Campbell produced award-winning artwork for numerous periodicals throughout his career. He was a master cartoonist of sophisticated humor, caricaturist, and artist.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 2, 1906, Elmer Simms Campbell was the son of Elmer Cary, a chemistry teacher and assistant principal in a high school in St. Louis. His mother, Elizabeth Simms Campbell, stimulated her son’s interest in art as she frequently painted with watercolors for amusement. Campbell’s first wife, Constance, whom he married in 1936, died in 1940, and he married her younger sister, Vivian. They had one child, Elizabeth Ann.

Campbell received his early education in St. Louis. When he was ready for high school, he lived with his aunt in Chicago, graduating from Englewood High School. Englewood students and teachers were exceedingly interested in student artwork. Some of the school’s earliest graduates had already made names for themselves as cartoonists, and students whose artwork appeared in The’E’ Weekly were given special notice.

Campbell’s drawings were soon among the most familiar ones in the school paper. His name was as well known to classmates as were the names of Englewood’s athletes. In 1923, he won a nationwide contest in a high school paper for an Armistice Day cartoon showing the nation’s debt to those who died in World War I.

After high school, Campbell attended the Lewis Institute and later tried the University of Chicago for a year. Neither school seemed right for him then, but he stayed in Chicago and worked on the staff of the Phoenix, a humor magazine. Campbell then registered at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he remained a student for a brief period. At the institute, he entered pictures in the International Water Color Exhibits, where they were accepted and commended.

He financed his education through scholarships and summer jobs as a post office messenger and a dining car waiter. While in Chicago, Campbell also participated in creating College Comics, a magazine in which he did many drawings under various pseudonyms. The magazine failed, and Campbell returned to St. Louis.

Freelanced in the Big Apple

Back in St. Louis, Campbell was discouraged from a career in commercial art because of his skin color. Still, he was dogged in his determination to break down the discrimination barrier in his area of interest. Serving as a waiter in a dining car, he drew caricatures of the train passengers. Later, he succeeded in showing his work.

Began Work for Esquire

Campbell began receiving plenty of commissions and soon after published his well-known “A Night-Club Map of Harlem,” an engraving locating cafes and such sites as the Lafayette Theater, the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, and Small’s Paradise; Campbell placed his friend Cab Calloway in a prominent position at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue. The original drawing became a part of Calloway’s collection.

The editors planning the first issue of Esquire magazine in October of 1933 approached Campbell after seeing his work. Campbell was commissioned to do a full-page drawing in color. He was permitted to use any subject he liked as long as it had plenty of beautiful girls. For days, myriad ideas dazzled him until he completed a design of a sultan surrounded by his harem of shapely femmes fatales. The editors published it.

The cover was a smash hit, and the public clamored for more. Esquire hired Campbell under a long-term contract, and the sprawling signature E. Simms Campbell soon became well-known to a vast number who avidly read America’s humorous magazines. Campbell’s seraglio beauties paid his bills, built him a bank account, and bought him a beautiful sprawling estate in White Plains, New York.

Campbell’s splendid black-and-white illustrations appeared in many other magazines, indicating that Campbell’s talent was not confined to caricatures and cartoons. His art also appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines as a syndicated feature and commercial advertising agencies employed his talent in the composition of their ads. In his early thirties, Campbell became one of his field’s highest-paid commercial artists.

He was a tireless worker, producing about 300 full-page drawings a year, creating many drawings for ads, serving as a cartoonist for newspaper syndicates, and producing creative drawings for particular purposes.

Campbell contributed cartoons and other artwork to Cosmopolitan magazine, Red Book magazine, The New Yorker, Collier’s magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, College Humor, Playboy, and Opportunity. He contributed advertising illustrations and cartoons to Esquire; he did a total of pages of cartoons for the New York Sunday Mirror and black and white illustrations for Jack Kofoed’s Great Dramas in Sports, which appeared in Life magazine. Moreover, Campbell designed the cover of Into the Light, a brochure in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Young Men’s Christian Association.

Aided Up-and-coming Artists

Because Campbell worked under a contract with King Features Syndicate, which served leading daily papers, his cartoons appeared in 145 newspapers throughout the United States. He won the $ 1,000 prize in the 1936 national competition offered by the Chicago Hearst newspaper for the best cartoon depicting the tax-grabber as the greedy profiteer. Campbell likewise won an honorable mention for watercolor at the American Negro Exposition in 1940.

He was represented in the International Water Color Society’s shows for several years. A member of the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Artists, and the National Society of Cartoonists, he held honorary degrees from Lincoln and Wilber-force universities. Campbell’s work was gathered in two books—Cuties in Arms (1942) and More Cuties in Arms(1943), both collections of his cartoons by David McKay.

One of Campbell’s most satisfactory hobbies was functioning as a tutor and advisor to many rising young artists. Much fan mail came to him from aspiring artists, often very young, or parents eager to learn whether their children possessed an artistic gift. Campbell answered all of this mail and generously gave his time to young artists by inviting them to his home for criticism and advice, making connections in the commercial art world, and encouraging them as he needed encouragement.

In 1938, Campbell lost a New York Supreme Court application in White Plains that would have required mortgage trustees to sell a 12-acre estate in Mount Pleasant to him for $18,500. His counsel, renowned civil libertarian Arthur Garfield Hays, contended that Campbell’s proposal was rejected because of his color.

In 1957, after his primary employer, Esquire, changed its format, Campbell and his family moved to Switzerland, where they lived for 14 years. After his wife, Vivian, died of cancer in October of 1970, Campbell returned to the United States. He was diagnosed with cancer as well and died on January 27, 1971.

His daughter, Elizabeth Ann Parks, and a granddaughter survived Campbell. His daughter had married Gordon Parks, the celebrated photographer, author, and filmmaker. Funeral services were held in the White Plains Community Unitarian Church. Campbell dedicated his life to amusing countless readers of the periodicals that published his drawings, and sources claim that he found peace through achieving his goal.

Legacy and Recognition

Elmer Simms Campbell left an enduring legacy that extends beyond his artistic contributions. His gag panel, “Cuties,” was syndicated by King Features in over 145 newspapers, later compiled into a paperback published by Avon. One of his most iconic creations, “A Night-Club Map of 1930s Harlem,” remains culturally and historically significant. This map, filled with wit and cartoons, captured the vibrancy of Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, showcasing landmarks and personalities of the era. The original map is housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Campbell’s influence on jazz history is underscored by his inclusion in the book version of Ken Burns’s documentary “Jazz,” his map was displayed by the Smithsonian in 1996. National Geographic featured an article on Campbell’s map in 2017, and it was again highlighted in 2020 among a collection of unique maps of New York City.

In 1940, Campbell received recognition at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago, where one of the 33 dioramas honored his contributions. Posthumously, in 2020, Elmer Simms Campbell was inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame, solidifying his status as a pioneering figure in American cartooning.

Conclusion

Elmer Simms Campbell’s journey from a young artist in St. Louis to a groundbreaking cartoonist in the heart of New York City is a testament to his talent, resilience, and cultural impact. As the first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed, slick magazines, Campbell paved the way for future artists. His creations, from the iconic Esky to the cultural treasure that is “A Night-Club Map of 1930s Harlem,” continue to resonate with audiences, showcasing the enduring relevance of his work. Elmer Simms Campbell’s legacy transcends the boundaries of time, leaving an indelible mark on the worlds of art, culture, and African-American history.

Sources

Books

• Bontemps, Arna W., We Have Tomorrow, Houghton Mifflin, 1945.
• Brawley, Benjamin G., The Negro Genius, Dodd, Mead, 1937.
• Calloway, Cab (with Bryant Rollins), Of Minnie the Moocher & Me, Crowell, 1976.
• Downs, Karl E., Meet the Negro, Login Press, 1943.
• Murray, Florence, The Negro Handbook, Wendell Malliet and Co., 1942.
• National Urban League, He Crashed the Color Line!, National Urban League, 1933.
• National Urban League, They Crashed the Color Line!, National Urban League, 1937.
• Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1937-38, Negro Year Book Publishing Co., 1937.
• Robinson, Wilhelmina S., Historical Negro Biographies, Publishers Company, 1968.
• Watkins, Sylvester C., The Pocket Book of Negro Facts, Bookmark Press, 1946.

FAQs about Elmer Simms Campbell (E. Simms Campbell)

Who was Elmer Simms Campbell?

Elmer Simms Campbell, also known as E. Simms Campbell, was an American commercial artist and the first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed, slick magazines.

What is he best known for?

Campbell is best known for creating Esky, the pop-eyed mascot of Esquire, and for his “Harem Girls” series, which appeared in Esquire from 1933 to 1958.

Where and when was he born?

Elmer Simms Campbell was born on January 2, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.

Where did he receive his education?

Campbell attended the University of Chicago but later transferred to and received his degree from the Chicago Art Institute.

What was his early career like?

He initially worked as a railroad dining-car waiter and later joined Triad Studios in St. Louis, where he began his artistic career.

What were some of his notable works and contributions?

Campbell contributed to various magazines, including Life, Judge, The Chicagoan, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, The New Yorker, Playboy, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Pictorial Review, and Redbook. He also created the “Harem Girls” series and the enduring mascot for Esquire.

Tell me about his gag panel, “Cuties.”

His gag panel, Cuties, was syndicated by King Features in more than 145 newspapers and later collected in a paperback published by Avon.

What is the significance of the “Night-Club Map of 1930s Harlem”?

Campbell’s map, drawn in 1932, is a cultural and historical representation of Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, identifying the attractions of the time.

What recognition did Elmer Simms Campbell receive?

In 1940, Campbell was honored with one of the 33 dioramas at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago. In 2020, he was inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

When and where did Elmer Simms Campbell pass away?

Elmer Simms Campbell died on January 27, 1971, in White Plains, New York, at 65.