Commercial Art by Carl Ahrens
From the 1890's onward Carl Ahrens occasionally did commercial illustrations and advertisements for periodicals in both Toronto and New York City. I have only found a handful of examples so far. It appears he sometimes signed his work with a small arrowhead symbol with his initials enclosed. I have also seen a capital C surrounding a capital A. I am currently looking for a January 1908 issue of Home Journal (Toronto) as it features a continuation of the story Carl illustrated in the December 1907 issue. I know he also illustrated several stories in the Christmas 1899 issue of Saturday Night (Toronto).
Image above and the two images in the center are from the December 1907 issue of Home Journal (Toronto). The color one is the cover illustration.
The above painting, called Hailing the Camp, was commissioned by Outing Magazine in 1900.
Commercial
signatures
The above illustration is featured on
the last page of the July 1908 issue of
The Canadian Magazine.
The sketches above and to the right were illustrations
for a poem called An Old Tune by Laura Skaats
Cunningham in a late 1907 issue of Sunset Magazine,
published in San Francisco, CA.
The illustrations above, below and to the right were all from the 1899 Christmas
magazine for Saturday Night, a Toronto paper. Carl illustrated three stories in this
issue, including one by his friend, poet and recitalist Pauline Johnson. It is possible
that he used his first wife, Emily, as a model for the woman to the right, and his
daughter, Polly, would have been the right age to be the child below.
