Donald M. Anderson

Donald Meyers Anderson (1915-1995) was a graphic designer, calligrapher and educator.

Early life and education Donald Myers Anderson was born in Bridgewater, South Dakota on December 13, 1915, the sixth of eight children born to John Howard and Gertrude Phoebe Myers Anderson. On June 18, 1939 he married Marjorie Elizabeth Miller (d.1986).

Anderson received both undergraduate and graduate art degrees from the University of Iowa (1940 and 1941) where he studied painting with Grant Wood and Philip Guston.

Career During World War II, Anderson initially worked in Washington D.C. as an illustrator for the Ordnance Department of the Pentagon, and later as a designer for the Civil Aeronautics Bureau. Additionally, he published an artist book with Meles Vulgaris Press, and edited and published manuals on Renaissance calligraphy in the form of facsimiles. the Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee) and the Museum of Wisconsin Art (West Bend, Wisconsin).

The Newberry Library in Chicago acquired many of his personal papers and manuscripts. The Donald M. Anderson collection is housed in the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections at the Newberry.

Death and legacy Anderson died at age 79 on September 5, 1995.

Resources Signature: A quarterly publication of the Colleagues of Calligraphy, Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota, Volume X, number 1, September 1965

Life magazine, "Wisconsin Airscapes" January 14, 1952, p. 68

Descendants of William and Catherine Anderson, Donald M Anderson, 1981 (plus other family-related books) The Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Oral History Program, Interview with Donald Anderson, 1991

The Art of Written Forms: The Theory and Practice of Calligraphy, Internet Archive