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Stevan Dohanos: About

Stevan Dohanos

Artist, illustrator and a founder of the Famous Artists School in Westport, CT

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Who was Stevan Dohanos?

Stevan Dohanos was known as a sensitive portrayer of common objects. His careful observation of everyday things began during his childhood in the mill town of Lorain, Ohio, where he was born in 1907, the son of Hungarian immigrants. From an early age, Dohanos worked to contribute to the family budget, and left school as soon as he could at age 16. He worked his way into a white-collar job in the steel mill office, and spent his free time copying the pictures on the calendars that hung on the walls. Before long, co-workers were offering to buy his drawings. He charged fifty cents apiece, then a dollar, and eventually a dollar fifty for a copy of a Norman Rockwell Post cover. Inspired by this success, Dohanos decided he might have a future in art. He took a correspondence course, and then went to night classes at the Cleveland Art School, eventually taking a job as an apprentice in lettering at a commercial art studio. At the same time as he honed his technical skills, he also developed his fine art ability – which he liked to call his “Sunday painting” – and in 1932 won first prize at the Cleveland Art School for a group of engravings.

In 1935, Dohanos was offered a position at an agency in New York. He took a leave of absence in 1936 to work for six months in the Virgin Islands as a member of a U.S. Treasury Department art project. It was an enlightening and productive time: he developed a completely new style of painting, portraying the brilliant colors of the tropics in a manner both rugged and exquisitely detailed. The resultant paintings were popular; Eleanor Roosevelt bought three. His career blossomed. He was in demand both for advertising and illustration assignments, and he was also commissioned to paint murals in public buildings in West Virginia, West Palm Beach, and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Continue reading from Illustration History

Link to Westport Local Artists Resource Guide Series