John Edward Costigan
American, 1888-1972
Born on February 29, 1888, in Providence, Rhode Island he was orphaned in adolescence. Costigan was taken in by his aunt and uncle, vaudeville performers Helen and Jeremiah Cohan. He began working as an errand boy and afterward held jobs in local costume jewelry factories. In 1903, Costigan moved to New York City through the assistance of his aunt and uncle, who obtained a position for him with the H.C. Miner Lithographing Company. There he resided in a theatrical boarding house and attended rehearsals for the works of his playwright cousin, George M. Cohan. The Miner Company produced posters for such theatrical works. Though Costigan began as a pressroom helper, through his twenty-eight year employment with the company he learned about printing through apprenticeships, and began applying his artistic talent professionally. Once promoted to sketch artist, Costigan worked designing posters for the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as silent pictures like D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.
Costigan’s formal art instruction was limited to a few weeks at the Art Student’s League where he studied under William Merritt Chase and George Bridgman. He stayed committed instead to a studio on 14th Street called the Kit Kat Club, where illustrators and newspaper artists spent nights sketching from live models in an informal atmosphere. By the age of thirty, Costigan exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Washington D.C., in addition to the MacDowell Club, and Babcock Gallery in New York. The year following his showing at the Babcock Gallery Costigan joined the army as a private and served in World War I. During his 1918-1919 service he experienced action while positioned in France with the 52nd “Pioneer” Infantry Division. Costigan married sculptor and professional artist’s model Ida Blessin in 1919, and the couple retreated to Orangeburg, New York.
Through the twenties, Costigan gained greater recognition with a number of exhibitions, including showings at the Art Institute of Chicago, Salmagundi Gallery and Corcoran Gallery. An influx of awards for his work in oil and watercolor helped secure his notoriety, beginning in 1920 with an award from the National Academy of Design. In 1928, Costigan was made an Academician to the National Academy of Design, leading him to add the distinction of “N.A.” (National Academy) to his signature.
As Costigan continued to exhibit and receive awards in painting and printing, he also remained reliant on outside work. After the close of the Miner Company, Costigan taught at the Art Students League and in his Orangeburg home, found employment in a defense plant as a machine operator during World War II, and took up commercial work illustrating McCall’s Bluebook magazine for five years. Nevertheless, during the 1940s he exhibited at both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Carnegie Institute. Costigan’s place in the fine art world was reaffirmed in 1968 with the launch of a retrospective exhibition from the Smithsonian Institute.
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