Unused postcard - Pub: ? - Artist - Cobb Shinn (1887 – 1951)
Conrad (“Cobb”) X. Shinn was born in 1887 in Fillmore, Indiana. He attended the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis from 1907 to 1909. Even as a student he published postcard cartoons on various subjects, including this one from a series of images of Charlie Chaplin - here poking fun at Edwardian fashions.
In November 1917, Shinn at age 30, volunteered for the Army. He ultimately was assigned to a unit that made camouflage cloth to confuse enemy air strikes. He sent home humorous cartoons of his army life, which the local paper says were also printed by many other newspapers.
Shinn returned safely to Indianapolis in 1919 to a changed art landscape. The “Golden Age” of postcard collecting had faded and with it had gone the demand for his postcard designs. Shinn adjusted by changing to book illustration and writing books of his own.
Shinn died on January 28, 1951, and is buried in Bluff Creek Cemetery in Greenwood, Indiana.