Jerry Mc Daniel - Biography

Biography

McDaniel was born during the depression on a farm called The Jake White Place on Rabbit Ridge near Zaleski, in Vinton County, Ohio. His father Hoyt Glen, a 25-year-old cattle farmer, married Lillian, age 16, in West Virginia three months before Jerry was born. At the beginning of World War II, McDaniel's father, fearing the draft, sold all the livestock and moved the family to Athens, Ohio. After his father died in 1951, his mother moved the family to Logan, Ohio to find employment.

In his senior High School year Jerry was an apprentice manager at J. C. Penny in Logan, OH. McDaniel earned a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). He worked his way through College as a mapmaker for the Ohio State Department of Hydrology. He graduated from CCAD twice, once with a Professional Certificate in 1957 and then with a BFA in 1972.

Moving to New York in July 1957, he worked as a package designer for Continental Can Corporation. McDaniel's first work appeared in Redbook Magazine in September 1957. After military service as a Spec 9 architect, McDaniel returned to New York, becoming a graphic designer/art director for the LW Froehlich Company, a large pharmaceutical advertising agency.

In the summer of 1961, Saul Bass’s East Coast agent, Lester Rosin Creative Group, became McDaniel’s agent. His first commission was a national campaign for Pan Am Airlines. This work appeared full-page every Monday in the New York Times for 52 consecutive weeks, followed by 300 drawings in three months for Intercontinental Hotels, which ran worldwide for three years.

In 1963, he enrolled in the Experimental Workshop at the New School for Social Research (NSSR) taught by Italian artist Angelo Savelli and later American artist Henry C. Pearson. In 1965, he chaired the Illustrators Annual Show, Society of Illustrators and in 1966 he created The Harlow's poster with the influence of the workshop at the NSSR.

In 1967, NBC requested paintings from the US Air Force Collection to air during the launching of the Apollo 11 mission. NBC selected five pieces, one of which was Jerry’s “Dawn of the Day.” The painting was seen on national and international television for 32 minutes of airtime on the Today Show for the Apollo 11 Space Launch.

In 1970, McDaniel was a founding member of the Advertising Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology, teaching Graphic Design at the New York Institute of Technology and lecturing at the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of Visual Arts, the Columbus College of Art and Design, and the Maryland Institute of Art and Design.

In the late 1960s, McDaniel designed and illustrated the complete Zane Gray Western Series for Simon & Schuster, and also created book covers for the S. S. Van Dine "Murder Mystery" series for three different publishers, including Charles Scribner's Sons’s over a ten-year period.

In 1971 Anita Grien became Jerry’s agent for the next three decades.

He was the MCCAA Tennis Champion for 1971-1972. As a result of his tennis success, he was afforded the opportunity to work as a Sports Artist and Designer for Phillip Morris for more than 25 years.

McDaniel has conceived and produced short films and film titles, among them the film “ICE” (Idea, Composition, and Execution) and the film titles for “The Bolshoi at The Bolshoi.”

In 2008, the New York Society of Illustrators commemorated the 50th anniversary of their Annual Show by publishing a book entitled Icons and Images: 50 Years of Illustration, containing 500 of the 25,000 illustrations from the Society's Annuals. McDaniel's 1972 Grand Prix Philip Morris poster was among those selected.