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Herman Rountree (1878-1944)

Herman Brown Rountree (1878-1946)

Herman Rountree was a painter, illustrator and poster designer who specialised in depicting animals in the wild.

Herman Rountree was born in Springfield, Greene, Missouri, on 28 August 1878, the youngest of three children of Bentley Jones Rountree and his wife, Evamay (née Hovey). Little is known of his artistic training, but he became an illustrator of books, magazines, posters and sheet music covers.

Rountree contributed illustrations to such magazines as Gunter’s Magazine, Appleton’s Booklovers Magazine, The Sportsman, Frank Buck’s Bring ’Em Back Alive and Field and Stream (the ‘Old Warden’ series), and to newspapers in Philadelphia, St Louis and Hartford. The books that he illustrated included the novels, Jules Claretie’s Le Prince Zilah and Hector Malot’s Conscience, which were published in both French (in Paris) and English (in New York) in 1905.

In 1902, Rountree married Nell Lamoine Lee. They would have two daughters, Helen Cynthia and Eleanor Lee. From 1913, the family lived at 176 Slocum Crescent, Forest Hills, Queens, New York City. The house, which included a two-storey rear studio was designed by the neighbourhood’s principal architect, Grosvenor Atterbury. Rountree was chairman of the Posters Committee for the Independence Day celebrations at Forest Hills, and designed posters for the event in the years 1916-19. His later addresses include Wakefield, South Kingston, Washington, Rhode Island.

Herman Rountree died in hospital in Westerly, Washington, Rhode Island, on 8 December 1946.

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