Laura Wheeler Waring worked in two registers that designers rarely see side by side. In the 1910s and 1920s she drew covers and illustrations for The Crisis and its children’s magazine, The Brownies’ Book: black-and-white designs made to be printed, with decorative borders and stylised figures. Across the same decades she painted portraits in oil, many of them of Black Americans, built on steady drawing and quiet colour. Read together, they show an artist who understood both the page and the canvas.
Her work is not flagged public domain or CC0 by the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Cleveland Museum of Art, so this guide describes it in text only, and none of it should be treated as free to use. For historic images that are cleared for reuse, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Laura Wheeler Waring?
The Met’s collection records give her dates as 1887–1948, born in Hartford, Connecticut, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Britannica gives the same places and dates her death to 3 February 1948. She trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Britannica and Encyclopedia.com both record that in 1914 she received the Academy’s A. William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship, and that the outbreak of the First World War cut her European trip short.
Teaching anchored her career. She taught at the Cheyney Training School for Teachers, later Cheyney State Teachers College, in Pennsylvania, and directed its art and music departments for some three decades. Encyclopedia.com dates her start to 1906, while a biography by The Art Story gives the autumn of 1907. Encyclopedia.com also records that in 1924 she returned to Paris and enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
In 1927, according to BlackPast and other biographies, she married Walter E. Waring, a professor at Lincoln University. That date matters for anyone dating her drawings: early magazine credits, including a 1920 Brownies’ Book cover, read “Laura Wheeler.”
A dated outline of key works
- August 1920: The Brownies’ Book cover. The University of Nebraska’s digital edition of the magazine lists a cover drawing credited to Laura Wheeler, one of many drawings she made for it.
- April 1923: Egypt and Spring. An ink-on-paper design for the cover of The Crisis (volume 25, number 6), showing a woman playing an ancient harp. The Met records it as a loan, returned to its lender after the exhibition Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now.
- June 1924: Africa in America. Another ink cover design for The Crisis (volume 28, number 2), also shown in the Met’s Flight into Egypt exhibition.
- 1927: Anna Washington Derry. An oil portrait of a laundress, now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a gift of the Harmon Foundation. Biographies record that it won her a Harmon Foundation award in fine art in 1927.
- About 1927: Girl in Pink Dress. An oil on canvas, 81.9 × 53.3 cm, acquired by the Met in 2024.
- 1938: Girl with Pomegranates. An oil on canvas, 92.1 × 76.7 cm, also acquired by the Met in 2024 and listed in its modern and contemporary galleries.
- 1944: Harmon Foundation portraits. The Harmon Foundation’s exhibition Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin opened at the Smithsonian in 1944. The National Portrait Gallery holds her 1944 portrait of the singer Marian Anderson from that project, and a Pennsylvania historical marker records that she also painted W. E. B. Du Bois for it. Accounts give her contribution to the show as either six or eight portraits.
What to look at in the magazine covers
A framed figure. Her Crisis covers centre a single figure inside a decorative frame or field. The figure carries the meaning; the ornament gives it a setting and a sense of occasion. It is a cover formula that still works: one subject, one frame, one masthead.
Ornament from many sources. The Art Story describes these covers as combining ancient Egyptian imagery with elements of Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement. Egypt and Spring, with its harpist, draws on the Egyptian side; the decorative borders and flowing contours connect to the international style seen in Art Nouveau graphic design. For the Egyptian motifs themselves, see the guide to Egyptian art.
Line made for print. The covers were drawn in ink on paper, which means they were planned for line reproduction: clean outlines, solid blacks and open white areas rather than painted tone. That discipline is visible in how the shapes lock together as a flat pattern.
Lettering and signature. On a magazine cover the artwork shares space with a fixed masthead and issue details, so her designs leave room for type. Look also at the signature: before 1927 the credit reads Laura Wheeler, which is a small but useful dating clue.
What to look at in the portraits
One sitter, one focus. The paintings named above are single-sitter portraits. The format keeps one person at the centre of attention, with the setting kept subordinate to the face.
Restrained palette with one accent. The titles of the Met’s two paintings point to her method: a pink dress, a handful of pomegranates. A single warm note set against muted surroundings draws the eye and gives each picture its identity.
Dignity as a design goal. The Art Story characterises her work as focused on the dignity of Black life rather than on political statement. In the Harmon portraits, made for a touring public exhibition, that aim became a programme: a set of formal likenesses of accomplished people, presented together.
Technique
Her two practices required different skills. For the magazines she drew in ink, a medium that rewards planning, since every mark will print at full strength. A cover had to read at newsstand distance and survive the printing of its day, which favours bold outlines, decorative borders and limited detail.
For the portraits she painted in oil on canvas, trained in the academic tradition of the Pennsylvania Academy and her studies in Paris. The Met’s records for Girl in Pink Dress and Girl with Pomegranates list oil on canvas at a modest easel scale, under a metre in each direction. Her role as a teacher at Cheyney adds a third dimension: she spent decades explaining these methods to students as well as using them.
Her magazine work sits alongside that of Aaron Douglas, whose silhouetted designs also appeared in Harlem Renaissance periodicals, and her portraits invite comparison with the painter and teacher Lois Mailou Jones.
How designers can borrow from Laura Wheeler Waring
Use the framed-figure cover. For an editorial cover, a book jacket or a podcast tile, put one figure in the centre, surround it with a border or patterned field, and leave a clear band for the title. The frame signals importance without extra words.
Mix references with care. Her covers combine Egyptian motifs with Art Nouveau line. If you draw on a historical style, choose one source for the figure and another for the ornament, and keep the line weight consistent so the two read as one design.
Design for one colour first. Draw the layout in black and white, as she did in ink, then add colour. If it works in one colour it will survive any printing method or screen.
Give portraits one accent colour. In brand photography or illustrated portraits, keep backgrounds and clothing muted and let a single warm element carry the colour. It creates a recognisable series without heavy styling.
Treat a series as a system. The Harmon portraits were made as a set to travel together. If you are producing a run of profiles or speaker cards, fix the crop, pose, background and light so the people, not the styling, are what varies.
Her paintings and drawings are protected works or are held under museum terms that do not flag them for reuse. Study the approach and make your own images.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Laura Wheeler Waring?
Laura Wheeler Waring (1887–1948) was an American painter, illustrator and educator, born in Hartford, Connecticut. She trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, taught for decades at Cheyney in Pennsylvania, drew for The Crisis and The Brownies’ Book, and painted portraits.
What magazine covers did Laura Wheeler Waring design?
She drew covers for The Crisis, including Egypt and Spring (April 1923) and Africa in America (June 1924), both shown at the Met. The Brownies’ Book credits a cover to her in August 1920.
Where can I see Laura Wheeler Waring’s paintings?
The Met holds Girl in Pink Dress and Girl with Pomegranates. The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds Anna Washington Derry, and the National Portrait Gallery holds her portrait of Marian Anderson.
Is Laura Wheeler Waring’s work public domain?
None of her works at the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Cleveland Museum of Art is flagged public domain or CC0. Check each museum’s terms and any rights holders before reproducing her work.
