Frederick Otto Seibel papers

Access and use

Location of collection:
Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library
James Branch Cabell Library
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842003
901 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284-2003
Contact for questions and access:
POC: SCA Staff
Phone: (804) 828-1108
Fax: (804) 828-0151
Restrictions:

Collection is open to research.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Frederick Otto Seibel papers, Collection # M 23, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Summary

Extent:
16.9 Linear Feet (contains oversize material)
Creator:
Seibel, Fred O. (Fred Otto), 1886-1969
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

Frederick Otto Seibel papers, Collection # M 23, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

The Seibel Collection is comprised of two major sections: letters which Seibel received relating to his newspaper cartoons (including correspondence from Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Harry F. Byrd, John L. Lewis, J. Edgar Hoover and numerous members of the federal and state government), and a complete set of his published cartoons from both the Knickerbocker Press and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Other items in the collection include drawing notebooks and early art school sketches, seven oil paintings thought to have been painted by Seibel, folios containing copies of sketches by Charles Dana Gibson and Frederic Remington, as well as folios containing newspaper clippings of major world events in Seibel's lifetime. There are also thirty-four original cartoons, some of which were autographed by Seibel.

Biographical / historical:

Frederick Otto Seibel was born in Durhamville, New York, on 8 October 1886 and died in Richmond, Virginia on 19 June 1968. Siebel spent his childhood drawing sketches of the Erie Canal. He was married with no children. After attending classes at the Art Students League in New York City for a short time. Seibel started his own commercial art business in the early years of the twentieth century. His first cartoon was printed in the Oneida Dispatch in 1908. He began his career as a cartoonist in 1916 for the Knickerbocker Press in Albany, New York. Seibel moved to Virginia in 1926 to become an editorial cartoonist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and worked there for over thirty years. He did several shows at the Metropolitan Museum Of New York, Art Institute of Chicago and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A biography is contained in the Spring 1977 issue of the Virginia Cavalcade (included in Box 1). Fred O. Seibel died in 1968 after completing nearly 16,000 cartoons. His most famous cartoon was "Retreat from Moscow" (11-5-1936) depicting presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith as Napoleon after FDR's landslide victory in 1936.

Arrangement:

Collection is arranged alphabetically. The Special Collections and Archives Department has 34 original cartoons, some inscribed, Seibel's own clipping file, early drawings, oils and watercolors and some correspondence. The collection is divided into two groups: Seibel's oil paintings, folios, and oversized cartoons are stored separately; the newspaper copies of his cartoons and boxed in groups of fifty and are arranged, with few exceptions, chronologically. The cartoons were cut and numbered by Seibel in the order in which they were published, and that numerical order has been preserved.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard