Below, the earliest piece I've ever found by her, from the January 1947 issue of an obscure old magazine called Household. As you can see, there was really nothing exceptional about the artist's work at that early point in her career.
Below, one of many Gibson Greeting Cards ads Lucia illustrated during the mid-1950s. Gibson was a steady account for the Chicago-based artist. I had the great fortune to connect with a gentleman named Will Nelson, who was just starting out in the commercial art business during this period and worked as a junior illustrator in the same studio, Stephens, Biondi, DiCicco. Will befriended Lucia, and its thanks to his generosity in extensively sharing stories of those times that I've managed to document as much as I have about Lucia. She was a remarkable woman... a single mother at a time when it was almost unheard of, a highly paid and highly respected professional in a field dominated by male competitors. Will said, "Her studio was the only one with a private counter and sink....the rest of us shared individual two man studios. You knew you had "arrived" when you were placed on the north side of the building. In the SBD family she was queen and treated accordingly."
Below, a Lucia illustration from 1960, from around the time she moved to SBD's Los Angeles studio. What became of her after this point is more difficult to determine. But the quality, skill and maturity of her work at this point in her career is without question. I like to think that, despite the adversity that was being visited upon the illustration business after 1960, Lucia continued to enjoy a successful career.
I've just collected and rewritten the entire Lucia Lerner story and posted it on Female Illustrators of the Mid-20th Century. Included there is a hint to what ultimately happened to this wonderful, still mysterious artist (and its not by coincidence that I used a Lucia illustration for the header art on the new blog).
* My Lucia Lerner Flickr set.
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