Frank Crane

• Born 1857-04 · Died 1917-10-26

Frank Crane was a late 19th- and early 20th-century U.S. newspaper cartoonist and art editor. He is best known for his Sunday gag comics for the New York Herald, most notably 'Willie Westinghouse Edison Smith, the Boy Inventor' (1900-1907, 1908-1914), 'Muggsy' (1901-1915) and 'Val the Ventriloquist' (1906-1908). After graduation from the New York Academy of Design Crane became a cartoonist on The New York World and later art editor of The World. In 1895 he became cartoonist and art director of the Philadelphia Press, having as members of his staff Everett Shinn, John Sloan, William J. Glackens, James Preston, F.R. Gruger, and others. He then made cartoons for The New York Tribune and came to the New York Herald, where he became Sunday art editor, and was for a time connected with the art departments of The New York Times and The Boston Herald.