page_title: George Fort Gibbs
section_title: Philadelphia
hierarchical_section_title: George Fort Gibbs / Biography / Philadelphia
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover art by George Gibbs for the July, 1902, issue of Ladies' Home Journal.
context_page_description: George Fort Gibbs was an American author, illustrator, artist, and screenwriter. As an author, he wrote more than 50 popular books, primarily adventure stories revolving around espionage in exotic locations. Several of his books were made into films. His illustrations appeared prominently in such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook and The Delineator. He also illustrated some of his own novels, and the novels of others. As a painter he produced many portraits, and painted murals for Pennsylvania Station and Girard College in Philadelphia. His screenwriting credits include a film about the life of Voltaire.
context_section_description: In 1898, Gibbs moved to Philadelphia at the invitation of Cyrus Curtis, founder of the Curtis Publishing Company. There, he created cover and interior illustrations for such Curtis publications as the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal. Among his early accomplishments was the first color cover for the Saturday Evening Post, which adorned the December 30, 1899 issue of the magazine.  He also wrote "art critiques and editorials, short stories, etc." for the Saturday Evening Post. For a while, Gibbs shared a studio with illustrator Guernsey Moore, the creator of the typeface (called "Post Old Style") used in the Saturday Evening Post logo.  An obituary for Moore credits him, rather than Gibbs, as the creator of the first color cover for the Post.  Gibbs and fellow illustrator Mills Thompson were among the first to employ the services of model Evelyn Nesbit, who would later become famous after her involvement with architect Stanford White led to his murder by Nesbit's husband.
  In April 1901, Gibbs married Maud Stovell Harrison (1878–1973), a classically trained pianist and daughter of a prominent Philadelphia family.  The bride's father, Theodore L. Harrison, was the son of Joseph Harrison Jr., an engineer and railroad magnate who had, in 1843, received a $3,000,000 contract from the Russian government to construct locomotives and rolling stock for the St. Petersburg and Moscow railway. Theodore Harrison had a "wedding cottage" named "The Orchard" built for the couple on the Harrison family property in Rosemont, near Philadelphia. This was to be George Gibbs' home for the remainder of his life.
  After his marriage, Gibbs' career as an author blossomed.  From 1901 until his death in 1942, he reliably turned out novels at a rate of
  about one per year.   By 1916 newspapers were speaking of Mr. Gibbs' "annual novel". 
  Many of these novels were serialized in newspapers and magazines before being published in book form.  His books were primarily adventure novels, in the vein of John Buchan or E. Philips Oppenheim, often involving international intrigue.  For example, his novel The Black Stone (1919) is reminiscent of John Buchan's Greenmantle (1916).  Both novels involve a sacred stone, and deal with an effort to thwart a German plot to provoke an Arab insurrection.
  Gibbs continued to illustrate his own and other authors' books, and to create illustrations for many magazines and newspapers.  He also pursued a growing career as a painter.
  In time, Gibbs became a pillar of the community and a well-known member of Philadelphia society.  When G.K. Chesterton visited
  Philadelphia in 1921, he stayed at the Gibbs' home.
  The 1936-37 edition of Who's Who in America notes that Gibbs was a member of the Art Club of Philadelphia, The Franklin Inn Club, the Pegasus Club, the Merion Cricket Club and the Rittenhouse Club.  During Chesterton's visit, Gibbs took him to lunch at the Franklin Inn club. In 1909, Gibbs discovered a fire in the clubhouse of the Merion Cricket Club, and helped organize a bucket brigade to put it out.  Gibbs participated in amateur theatrical productions, in one instance dressing in feathers to play Chanticleer: "We made it a sort of satire on modern letters, with Chantecler chasing Rostand and Ibsen haunted by his characters, and so on.  It was very good fun."  Gibbs served on juries for many art exhibitions alongside such luminaries of the time as Frederic Remington and A. B. Frost.  The 1925 Haverford College yearbook notes that Gibbs, "the well-known painter and writer of best-sellers", had addressed that school's English Club on the subject of "Writing Novels".
  Gibbs was for many years a vestryman of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont.  In 1929 he created seven paintings for the church's High Altar reredos as a memorial to his parents.  The center panel was a Virgin and Child, flanked by panels depicting other biblical figures from the Old and New Testaments.
  By 1915 film makers had begun adapting Gibbs' novels for the screen.  The first film based on a Gibbs novel was The Flaming S
caption: Gibbs' cover for the July, 1902, issue of Ladies' Home Journal
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