Glen Tracy and Charles Hellmuth were fellow students at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in the first decade of the 20th Century, becoming lifelong friends. Tracy also became an instructor in Preparatory Drawing, and Painting in Oil and Water Colors in 1909 at the Academy. This Tracy drawing was turned into a lithograph by Hellmuth while he worked at Morgan Litho in Cleveland in the early 1940’s, with the work dated 1943.  Hellmuth has added his printing notes in graphite to the bottom margin and titled the work in his own hand: A Good Joke.

It may be assumed that stylistically, Hellmuth was responsible for producing other lithographs from Tracy’s drawings. These are known to include “African Alley” (1921), Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati” (1922), and portrait of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (Nov. 25, 1938).

Glen Tracy: 1883-1956

The following biography is courtesy of The Johnson Collection:

“Since he studied and taught commercial art, it is not surprising that Glen Tracy had a penchant for illustrative imagery. He produced bright and colorful paintings derived from his extensive travels, but his favorite subject matter was the circus. 

Tracy was born in Hudson, Michigan, centrally located near the border with Ohio. He studied with Frank Duveneck at the Art Academy of Cincinnati for most of the period 1899–1910, and during his last year he taught some classes, later returning there from time to time to teach. The academy had been founded in the late 1860s for the “promotion of taste and design in the industrial arts” and counted amongst its alumni were Will Henry Stevens, James Hopkins, and John Alberts, who were enrolled there during the same period Tracy was a student. 

An inveterate traveler, Tracy painted all over North America, including Canada, Colorado, Kentucky, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and, in 1925, Cuba. He delved into local history and industry and painted crisp compositions with saturated colors. Around 1924 Tracy provided illustrations for a publication of an English translation of the French medieval romance: Aucassin and Nicolette published by the Fleuron Press in Cincinnati. He taught at Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati which opened in 1931, whose motto was “where employers come to hire artists.” Its specialties were advertising and fashion design.

Throughout his career the circus was Tracy’s major preoccupation and his passion. He and his wife Mimi followed the major circuses for almost a decade, and his travels were most likely connected to performances around the country. In 1951 he moved to Sarasota, Florida, where the tent shows spent their winters. His style for his circus subjects—both scenes and likenesses of performers—was vibrant and expressive. A line from his obituary describes his enthusiasm at capturing every detail: “Friends said that he would sit through acts dozens and dozens of times until every detail was [i]ngrained in his mind, and then go back to his trailer and in startling reality depict in detail the glamorous color of the circus show.”