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Nyesa McMein

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Artist

The Resume

    (January 24, 1888-May 12, 1949)
    Born in Quincy, Illinois
    Birth name was Marjorie Frances McMein
    Illustrator and portrait painter
    Designed covers for McClure’s, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and Collier’s
    Portrait subjects included Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charlie Chaplin, Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell, and Beatrice Lillie
    Inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame (1984)

Why she might be annoying:

    She changed her name to Nyesa on the advice of a numerologist.
    She had a brief career as an actress before becoming an artist.
    She designed ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes.
    She said about her magazine illustrations, ‘A cover is mainly a matter of drawing a new hat on a girl.’

Why she might not be annoying:

    During World War I, she designed posters for the French and US governments and the Red Cross, spoke at fundraising drives, and traveled through France to entertain the troops.
    She is one of only three women to have been named an honorary noncommissioned officer in the US Marine Corps.
    She was one of the judges at the ‘Fame and Fortune’ contest where Clara Bow was discovered.
    She provided the first ‘official portrait’ of Betty Crocker (1936), which lasted two decades before being updated.
    She hosted parties for the wits of the Algonquin Round Table at her studio.
    Harpo Marx wrote, ‘A lot of us agreed she was the sexiest gal in town. Everybody agreed she was the best portrait and cover artist of the times.’
    She broke her back when she fell down a flight of stairs while sleepwalking and had to have part of hip grafted to her spine (1942).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 17 Votes: 5.88% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 24 Votes: 50.0% Annoying