(N.B. that I am indebted for this post to David Saunders’s post on Hugh Rankin at The Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists. The article contains its own small trove of Hugh Rankin’s art (see the links on the left-hand side of the page, and for both that and the article I recommend your visiting.)
Our boy Hugh (officially named Hugh Dearborn Copp) did his share of sexy covers for Weird Tales, many of them somewhat earlier than Margaret Brundage’s run. This one, for example, from August 1929:
As noted in yesterday’s post, Hugh’s mother Ellen Rankin Copp was a distinguished American sculptor, and herself the granddaughter prominent abolitionists and Underground Railroad “conductors” Jean (1795-1877) and John Rankin (1793-1886). Quite the American family! Mrs. Copp designed a 25-foot tall sculpture of the Hawaiian fire goddess Pele for the Hawaii pavilion at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition.
Though only fourteen himself, Hugh ” sculpted a charming panel of Pixies and Brownies in a hurdle race, which was accepted by the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Fair and exhibited in the Childrens’ Pavilion.” Mother and son were, in their way, nationally celebrated figures.
Dig even a little and history becomes more fascinating than we have a right to.
