Albertine Randall was born May 27, 1863, in San Francisco, California.[1] A 1921 article in the American Magazine of Art lists San Francisco's Chinatown as a particular influence on her artistic development.[2] In 1887, she married businessman Fairfax Henry Wheelan, with whom she had two children, Edgar Stow Wheelan and Fairfax Randall Wheelan.[3] After her husband's death in 1915, she moved to New York City.[3]
Wheelan signed her work with her married name, Albertine Randall Wheelan.[3] For two decades prior to her move to New York, she was primary costume designer for David Belasco.[3] She designed costumes for Belasco's operaA Grand Army Man in 1904, and for his 1907 production The Rose of the Rancho, as well as for the 1914 operettaSari by C.S. Cushing, E.P. Heath, and Emmerich Kalman.[4][5]
Wheelan also illustrated children's books and magazines, including a number of pieces in St. Nicholas Magazine and Kindergarten Review, as well as The Quarterly Illustrator.[2][6][7] Her illustrations for the children's book A Chinese Child's Day garnered praise in The New York Times in a 1910 piece on children's literature.[8] She is noted in an article in the Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society as the designer of a bookplate for books "Given by the Ladies of the Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco," in 1904.[9]
In Rabbitboro, October 25, 1924
In the 1920s, Wheelan produced a newspaper comic called In Rabbitboro, originally published in the George Matthew Adams Service bulletin.[10] A 1922 book on humorists listed her among "the principal newspaper comic artists of this country," listing In Rabbitboro as her primary work of note.[11]In Rabbitboro was later retitled The Dumbunnies, and Wheelan patented it as The Dumbunnies in 1927.[12][13]
Wheelan's work was included in the Woman's Building at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.[16] In an account of women illustrators' work shown at the Fair, Alice C. Morse wrote that Wheelan "shows great originality, a remarkable sense of the humorous, and a daring handling of the pen. We enjoy hugely her Chinamen, cats, and other amusing creations. They are real beyond a shadow of a doubt, and one is positive that they have done, and will do again, all the ludicrous things that Mrs. Wheelan represents them as doing."[16]
In March 1911, some of Wheelan's bookplates were shown in an exhibition at the Society of Arts and Crafts of Detroit, lent by a member of the California Book-Plate Society.[17]
In March 1935, the Carlyle Gallery exhibited some of Wheelan's drawings of "Spanish, Parisian, and Mallorcan subjects".[18][19] In October 1937, Wheelan's travel sketches were exhibited at the Hudson Park Branch of the New York Public Library.[20]
^Schwed, Hermine (10 April 1910). "CHILDHOOD BOOKS FOR VARIOUS AGES: A Long List of Pretty or Quaint or Improving Stories About Children -- Song Books, Garden Books, and Tales". The New York Times.
^Goodman, Philip (March 1956). "American Jewish Bookplates". Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society. 45 (3): 129–216. JSTOR43058925.
^Plumb, Helen (May 1911). "Book-Plates: Notes on an Exhibition Held in Detroit". Art and Progress. 2 (7): 189–194. JSTOR20560374.
^"New York Exhibitions—March". The American Magazine of Art. 28 (3): 190–192. March 1935. JSTOR23933033.
^Devree, Howard (10 February 1935). "IN THE ART GALLERIES: FROM DAUMIER TO SANTA FE: Contrasting American Artists of Last Century and This -- A Variety of Shows". The New York Times.
^Devree, Howard (24 October 1937). "A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK: Brief Comment on Some of the Recently Opened Exhibitions in the Galleries". The New York Times.
