(1868-1962)
One of the first Americans to work in the Art Nouveau style, Bradley was an accomplished graphic designer and art editor, influenced by the British Arts and Crafts Movement, particularly the work of William Morris and Aubrey Beardsley. Known as ‘the American Beardsley’, his posters were renowned from the mid-1890s onwards when the poster craze began to sweep America. Bradley's work was widely disseminated through its publication in La Plume, the London-based poster magazine The Poster (1898-1901), and the Berlin-based Das Plakat (1910-21). It was also shown in Samuel Bing's celebrated L'Art Nouveau gallery in Paris. Considerable insights to Bradley's career and influences are afforded by his autobiography published late in his life, entitled Will Bradley: His Chap Book (1955). From around 1880 onwards Bradley had worked in the printing trade in Michigan, becoming involved in many aspects of printing, advertising, and layout. He subsequently moved to Chicago and, in 1887, worked for Knight and Leonard, a leading print firm, before becoming a freelancer in the 1890s. Bradley was able to see many facets of European and American art and design at the Chicago World's Columbian Exhibition in 1893, in the following year winning his first poster commission, linked to a book cover, title page, and page decorations for When Hearts are Trumps by Tom Hall. In the same year he designed The Masqueraders poster for the Empire Theatre, New York. Evident in these and other works was the influence of the rather sinuous linearity that characterized Beardsley's oeuvre and the flat blocks of colour associated with Japanese woodblock prints. Amongst Bradley's best-known posters were those for The Chap Book, Scribner's book The Modern Posters, and Victor Bicycles. Bradley also executed several other designs for The Chap Book magazine and, between 1894 and 1896, eighteen covers for The Inland Printer. His many other commissions included covers for Harper's Weekly and Harper's Bazaar. In 1895 Bradley established the Wayside Press, which amongst other forms of printed material designed by Bradley himself, published his art journal, Bradley: His Book, from 1996 to 1997. Bradley had become interested in the Barton Collection of Colonial New England books, which he had seen in Boston Public Library, reviving an interest in Old Caslon typeface and the creation of what was known as ‘The Chap Book Style’. In the early 1900s Bradley became consultant to the American Type Founders Company (established 1892), designing typefaces and The American Chap Book for which he also wrote. Much of his work was now involved in art directorship, including that of several leading American journals such as Collier's and Good Housekeeping. From 1915 to 1917 he took over the art supervision of a film series for William Randolph Hearst and, in 1920, became art director for Hearst magazines, newspapers, and films.
