Frederic Dorr Steele

Frederic Dorr Steele (August 6, 1873 – July 6, 1944) was an American illustrator best known for his work on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Early life and education Steele was born on 6 August 1873 at Eagle Mills, near Marquette, Michigan. He was the first of three children born to William Henry Steele and Zulma De Lacy Steele, née Dorr. In 1876, his family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin. His brother Joseph Dorr Steele was born in 1879, and his sister Zulma Steele was born in 1881. The family moved to Rutland, Vermont in 1889.

Steele was encouraged to pursue his artistic inclinations by his mother, who was an artist, and also by his maternal grandmother, author Julia C. R. Dorr. By the age of 16, he had decided to become a professional artist. He went to New York City in 1889 to acquire the necessary training and experience. He studied at the Art Students' League and the National Academy of Design.

Career Overview While studying art, Steele supported himself for three years by working as an architectural draftsman. He next served a two-year apprenticeship in the Harper publishing firm's art department. He continued to favor crayon throughout his career. Hoeber also wrote that Steele admired the work of multiple artists including Steinlen, Lepère, and others. E. W. Hornung's The Crime Doctor (1914), and Geraldine Bonner's The Black Eagle Mystery (1916).

His career as a magazine illustrator declined with the coming of the Great Depression, and he turned to newspapers, particularly the New York Herald-Tribune. Steele produced illustrations for the newspaper's theatrical section. Between 1928 and 1944, some 200 illustrations by Steele representing many different plays appeared in the Herald-Tribune.

Sherlock Holmes illustrations

Illustration by Steele of Inspector Hopkins, Dr. Watson, and Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez" (Collier's, 1904) For Collier's Weekly in 1903, Steele was invited to do the illustrations for The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. He continued to produce drawings for Sherlock Holmes stories for various publishers during the rest of his career. He illustrated 26 of the last 33 Sherlock Holmes stories for their initial American magazine appearances. Steele was the foremost American illustrator of the Holmes stories. His illustrations were largely responsible for popularizing the association of Holmes with a curved pipe and deerstalker hat.

Steele's illustrations for the thirteen stories in The Return of Sherlock Holmes were made in Deerfield, Massachusetts. His model for Sherlock Holmes for these stories was an English model named Robert King, who traveled to Deerfield to work with Steele. For later stories, Steele drew Holmes from other models including Frank B. Wilson and S. B. Doughty.

He based his depiction of Holmes on the portrayal of the character by the American actor William Gillette, who starred in the play Sherlock Holmes in its 1899 premiere and later productions. Steele wrote an essay titled "Sherlock Holmes: A Little History of the World's Most Famous Fictional Character" for a souvenir program for the play dated November 22, 1929. In a part of the essay concerning illustrations, he acknowledged that he based his depiction of Holmes on Gillette, and addressed a misconception that his drawings influenced Gillette's portrayal:

Everybody agreed that Mr. Gillette was the ideal Sherlock Holmes, and it was inevitable that I should copy him. So I made my models look like him, and even in two or three instances used photographs of him in my drawings. But while the actor was seen by thousands, the magazines and books were seen by millions; so after a score of years had gone by, few could remember which "did it first." Even so well informed a historian as Mr. Clayton Hamilton has tried to give me credit which belongs entirely to Mr. Gillette.

Steele illustrated a Sherlock Holmes parody by Carolyn Wells titled "The Adventure of the Clothes-line", which was published in The Century Magazine in May 1915. Steele was a fan of Holmes, "The Adventure of the Missing Artist" (1928), "The Attempted Murder of Malcolm Duncan" (1932),

Vincent Starrett dedicated his 1933 book The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes to Steele and two other people including William Gillette. In the book, Starrett praised Steele's illustrations of the Holmes stories, stating that "No happier association of author and artist can be imagined". Starrett also wrote that there was a popular misconception that Gillette was influenced by Steele's drawings rather than the reverse. He was cremated and his ashes were interred in a family plot at the Albany Rural Cemetery.