George Wolfe Plank

Vogue cover by George Wolfe Plank, April 1918

George Wolfe Plank (March 25, 1883 – May 4, 1965) was an American artist illustrator, chiefly remembered for his long-term association with Vogue magazine, which resulted in years of covers in an Art Deco style related to that of Helen Dryden although uniquely adventurous and queer.

Life

George Wolfe Plank was born in 1883 in a poor family near Gettysburg. He was raised by his grandparents in Bendersville after his mother died. While working in factories and stores he taught himself to draw and paint[1].

In 1907, he moved to Philadelphia and started editing and publishing The Butterfly Quarterly with Margaret H. Scott, Alice Smith and Amy Smith[1]. From 1911 to 1936, he worked for BritishVogue and his illustrations were used both on US and UK covers. In 1914, he moved to Britain with two of his friends, James and Mildred Whitall, and became friends with other modernists, like Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)[2].

In 1915, Plank meets E.F. Benson with whom he has an intense relationship. Neither Plank nor Benson declared themselves homosexuals publically. However, their correspondance and journals leave very little doubt as to their sexual orientation. They lived together, presented as a couple in their social circles and Plank also became close to Mary Benson, Benson's mother[3]. In 1916, he illustrated the cover for E.F. Benson's latest book, The Freaks of Mayfair[2].

In order to supplement his income, he provided illustrations for other friends' books, like Lady Wellesley's Genesis and H.D.'s Hedgehog. He also worked on theater production and costume design, propaganda during World War I and mapmaking as well as cloth, decor, stationery and toy design[1].

Until 1920, when their relationship suddenly came to an end, Plank and Benson spent time together in London and in Benson's Sussex villa, Henry James' old house[3]. In 1927 Plank moved into a house designed for him by Edwin Lutyens[2].

During World War II, Plank joined the Home Guard and suffered from hyperthyroidism. He became a naturalized Briton in 1945 and died the same year in a Sussex nursing home[1].

Style

Plank's work has been compared with such artists as Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Alphonse Mucha and even Gustav Klimt. His work is characterized by broad fields of bright colour setting off the mass and line of his principal figures. His composition is clear and simple, the wealth of sartorial detail notwithstanding. Plank broke onto the Vogue scene with his mature style almost completely established and worked for some years with no real rivals before Helen Dryden's work matured and she became one of the most important of his colleagues[4][5]. William Packer described Plank's concept of fashion as "ideal, bizarre and improbable, at once adventurous and yet romantic and nostalgic"[6].

This very style is qualified as "queer" by Christopher Reed : " I intend 'queer' here in its broadest sense, to indicate an attitude that delighted in destabilising institutionally sanctioned hierarchies". British Vogue's queerness reached its peak under Dorothy Todd who was its editor between 1922 et 1926. However, Plank's art started challenging artistic norms as well as heterosexual and cisgender social constructs in 1917, thanks to "etiolated" body proportions, inspiration from fin-de-siècle decadence and bizarre clothing. According to Dominic Janes, "his style was all about artificiality and performativity"[2]. What some qualify as "camp", others see as "neo-rococo"[7].

Selected book illustrations

  • The Freaks of Mayfair (1916) by E. F. Benson
  • The London Years (1923) by James Whitall

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Peltier, Karen V. (1988). "George Plank papers". Archives at Yale. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Janes, Dominic (2017). "Early Twentieth-Century Vogue, George Wolfe Plank and The Freaks of Mayfair". Visual Culture in Britain. 18 (1). doi:10.1080/14714787.2017.1317017.
  3. 1 2 Garwood, Sasha (1 May 2026). "E. F. Benson's Lost Romance". Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. 33 (2).
  4. ↑ Reed, Walt (2001). The illustrator in America, 1860-2000. Harper Collins. p. 154. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
  5. ↑ Fogg, Marnie, ed. (2013). Fashion : the whole story. Prestel Publishing. p. 210. ISBN 9783791347615.
  6. ↑ Packer, William (1984). The Art of Vogue Covers. Bonanza Books.
  7. ↑ Blackman, Cally (2007). 100 years of fashion illustration. p. 83. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
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