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Norman Mingo (1896-1980)
Artist Bio:
Norman Mingo was born in Chicago on January 25, 1896. As a child he won an art contest and pursued drawing so intensely that he left high school for a time to work for a men's clothing manufacturer, creating model cards. After three years in the Navy during World War I, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Academy of Fine Arts, among other schools. In the 1920s he opened an art studio in Chicago's Wrigley Building; his clients included Packard Motors and Studebaker, and the studio produced many full- and double-page advertisements for the Saturday Evening Post, signed with a pine tree logo. The Depression forced him to close the studio in 1931, and he moved to New York.
In the early 1940s the Merrill Publishing Company hired Mingo to paint covers and dolls for some of the firm's finest paper doll books, as well as companion coloring and paint books. His colorful, active designs and strong likenesses made him a first-rate designer, and his celebrity subjects are among the most prized Merrill editions of the decade. He also continued his broader commercial career, working as a magazine illustrator and creating advertising art, pin-ups, paperback covers for Pocket Books, and several movie posters in the 1940s and 1950s.
At age 60, Norman Mingo drew the first full-color portrait of Alfred E. Neuman for MAD magazine, which appeared on the December 1956 cover (No. 30). He left MAD for a time, then returned around the early 1960s and continued painting covers into the mid-1970s.
In 1979, Mingo was contacted by Jeanne Woodcock to do a paper doll book of Vivien Leigh for her newly acquired Merrill Publishing Co. Mingo agreed, but ill health forced him to withdraw and the book was completed by Marilyn Henry. Mingo remained active into his eighties and died in 1980 at the age of 84.
Sources: Paper Dolls and Their Artists, Revised Edition by Mary Young (1993); Paperdoll Review issue 12 (1996).
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Selected Titles:
Merrill paper dolls (dolls and covers):
Deanna Durbin Paper Dolls, #4804 (1941)
Alice Faye Paper Dolls, #4800 (1941)
Sonja Henie Paper Dolls, #3418 (1941)
Jeanette MacDonald Paper Dolls, #3460 (1941)
Ziegfeld Girl Paper Dolls, #3466 (1941)
Bette Davis Paper Dolls, #4816 (1942)
Rita Hayworth Paper Dolls, #3478 (1942)
Hedy Lamarr Paper Dolls, #3482 (1942)
Navy Scouts Paper Dolls, #3428 (1942)
Soldiers and Sailors House Party Paper Dolls, #3481 (1943)
Merrill coloring and paint books (covers):
Deanna Durbin Coloring Book, #3479 (1941)
Jeanette MacDonald Coloring Book, #3461 (1941)
Ziegfeld Girl Coloring Book, #3465 (1941)
Ziegfeld Girl Paint Book, #3485 (1941)
Rita Hayworth Coloring Book, #3483 (1942)
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