Tenth Letter of the Alphabet: July 2012

“…One day, I stopped the already ancient Ira Schnapp when he came up to the offices. He had been a letterer and logo designer beginning in the ’30s. He showed me how he took artist Joe Shuster’s crude Superman title and turned it into the trademark the world knows and recognizes today….”
—Michael Uslan, The Boy Who Loved Batman: A Memoir (2011)

Israel “Ira” Schnapp was born in Sassow, Austria on October 10, 1895, according to his World War II draft card. The 1910 U.S. Federal Census recorded his family in Manhattan, New York City at 86 Ludlow Street. He was the fourth of seven children born to Max and Sadie. His father, a retail merchant in the grocery business, emigrated in 1895. His oldest brother, Jacob, followed in 1898. Schnapp, his mother and two older brothers, Samuel and Joseph, arrived in 1900. His sisters, Lena and Sarah, were born in New York.

Schnapp graduated from Stuyvesant High School in June 1913.

Schnapp signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. His surname was misspelled as Schapp. Schnapp’s address in the Bronx was 483 East 170 Street. He was employed as a letterer at the W.T. Slide Company which was located at 115 East 23 Street in Manhattan. Schnapp was described as medium height and slender build with brown eyes and hair.

The New York, New York, Marriage Index, at Ancestry.com, said Schnapp married Beatrice Schwadron on September 30, 1918 in the Bronx.

In the 1920 federal census, which recorded Schnapp’s first name as Irving, he and Beatrice lived in the Bronx at 1510 Boston Road. He worked as an artist in the moving picture industry. The 1925 New York State Census found the Schnapps, with daughter Therese, in the Bronx at 2305 Grand Avenue. His occupation was artist.

The 1930 census said the Schnapps had a son, Martin, and remained in the Bronx but at 1455 Sheridan. Schnapp was a commercial artist. Sometime this decade he used the name Ira.

In 1936 Schnapp created a weekly panel, “The Art of the Ages”, which was syndicated by Curtis Newspaper Features, Inc., located at 45 West 45th Street in Manhattan. The syndicate’s partners were Julius H. Kamerman and William B. Curtis. “The Art of the Ages” was listed in Editor & Publisher on September 26, 1936; September 25, 1937; and September 24, 1938. In 1940 “The Art of the Ages” appeared in the Toledo Blade (Ohio), on page two of the Peach Section (near the end of the paper). The panel ran 24 consecutive weeks without a syndicate’s name.

January 23, 1940

The Knight, Death and the Devil by Albrecht Durer

January 30, 1940

The Transfiguration by Raphael

February 6, 1940

The Angelus byJean Francois Millet

February 13, 1940

Statue of Moses by Michelangelo

February 21, 1940

King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

February 27, 1940

The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough

March 5, 1940

Madame Le Brun and Daughter by Madame Le Brun

March 12, 1940

Aurora by Guido Reni

March 19, 1940

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli

March 26, 1940

The Night Watch by Rembrandt

April 2, 1940

The Statue of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini

April 9, 1940

The Laocoon Group

April 16, 1940

The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur

April 23, 1940

Hope by George Frederick Watts

April 30, 1940

Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage

May 7, 1940

The Toilet of Venus by Francois Boucher

May 14, 1940

The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals

May 21, 1940

The Age of Innocence by Sir Joshua Reynolds

May 28, 1940

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

June 4, 1940

The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh

June 11, 1940

Bartolommeo Colleoni Statue by Andrea del Verrocchio

June 18, 1940

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother by James Whistler

June 25, 1940

The Venus of Milo

July 2, 1940

The Song of the Lark by Jules Adolphe Breton

The 1940 census listed “Ira Schapps” at 515 West 110 Street in Manhattan, his same residence in 1935. He remained a commercial artist, who had two years of high school education.

Advertising Age, December 30, 1940, said

Join Superior Studios
Thomas G. Wiley has been named vice-president, and Jule Bauch, secretary and production manager, of Superior Studios, Inc., New York. Hector Zambrano and Ira Schnapp have joined the technical staff and Sam Golden and Merlin Lewis, the sales force.

In 1942, Schnapp signed his World War II draft card, which named George Iger as his nearest relative, a brother-in-law, who had married his sister, Lena/Lenore in the mid-1920s. In the 1930 census, Iger owned a restaurant, and in 1940 he operated a food packing business, Regis Food Company, according to his draft card. Schnapp’s mother lived with the Iger household in 1940.

Schnapp found work and employment in the comic book industry, and the rest is history, covered in-depth at Dial B for Blog’s “The Visionary: Ira Schnapp”, a ten-part look at his career; part 1 is here. Letterer Todd Klein spoke to artist Neal Adams, at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, about Schnapp and posted the information on Todd’s Blog.

According to the Social Security Death Index, Schnapp passed away July 1969 and his last residence was New York City. Schnapp’s birth date was given as October 10, 1892, three years earlier than the date on his World War II draft card. A death notice appeared in The New York Times, July 26, 1969.

Schnapp—Ira, beloved husband of Beatrice, devoted father of Martin and Teddy, loving grandfather of Jonathan David and dear brother. Services Sunday, 10:30 A.M. at “The Riverside,” 76 St. and Amsterdam Ave.

Census and military records at Ancestry.com were used in this profile. “The Art of the Ages” was found at the Google News Archive; I searched “Ira Schnapp" and got three hits, then I searched individual issues of the Toledo Blade. Schnapp’s panel appeared on Tuesday with one exception, when it was bumped to Wednesday. Like Schnapp, Artie Simek and Fred Eng were known mainly as letterers but they were also artists.

Todd Klein acquired printed copies of four “The Art of the Ages” and commented on them at his site.