Sam Savitt
Painter, Author, Teacher and Horseman
by Leo Pando

Savitt also idolized Harold Von Schmidt (1893-1982) who had earned a reputation for his detailed depictions of the American West. Von Schmidt cofounded the Famous Artists School and was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1959. Eventually Savitt studied under Von Schmidt and visited him at his Westport, Connecticut, home. Another great influence on Savitt was magazine illustrator Paul Brown (1893-1958), who specialized in painting horses in sports and in violent action.

Gene Autry's Champion #5, Feb/April 1952.	Gene Autry's Champion #112, Nov/Dec 1956.	Gene Autry's Champion #19, Aug/Oct 1955.

		Dell Comic Book Covers Savitt began his association with the Western Printing and Lithographing Company in 1951 when he was hired to paint a series of Dell Comic book covers beginning with Gene Autry's Champion.
		Gene Autry's Champion #9, Feb/April 1953.	At the same time, Dell was premiering a Hi Yo Silver and Roy Roger's Trigger comics. Savitt was the natural choice for all three assignments. For comic book fans and horse enthusiasts Savitt's covers would prove to be a match made in heaven. It is no wonder that these dramatic covers are collectors' items today.
Sir Lancelot, FC #606. 1954. Gouache on board.

Many an illustrator has been called upon to render horses for Dell Comics, however, Savitt brought a whole other level to his work because he had deep affection for and a profound understanding of these animals. "I know horses and I just sort of reconstruct them on canvas," he once told me. His strong foundation with horses allowed him, in whatever media he chose, to render them as close to being alive and engaged in action as the laws of physics would allow. Savitt knew how a horse would react physically and psychologically in any situation. With his vast store of knowledge, Savitt could create work in which every detail, from horse to rider to equipment, was accurately depicted. Although Ed Marine, editor at Western Printing, provided Savitt with photo references of the tack used by cowboy stars, Savitt also happened to be working for the Miller Harness Company catalog, rendering equine paraphernalia and illustrating horse motifs on draperies, pillowcases and calendars. The editors at Dell knew they could depend on Savitt to create a vibrant cover painting that would feature a horse in a situation pulsating with action. It made no difference that what the subject was doing and had little or nothing to do with the interior stories, kids were drawn to the covers and bought the comic books by the truckloads.

Gene Autry's Champion #15, Aug/Oct 1954

Savitt, who always free-lanced on his own, never on staff, did two or three painted covers a month simultaneously, averaging 15 a year. He would usually do a pencil sketch to show an editor and had no more than a two-week deadline. "Every week I had to come up with some dramatic situation for the horses to be in," Savitt said. "Sometimes they got pretty farfetched. But the challenge of showing the grace, fire and spirit in each horse as he battled whatever problem each week, was fun." On occasion, Savitt was also asked to submit an interior cover, illustrating some aspect of horsemanship, or a back cover breed portrait.

Ben-Hur, Del FC #1052, 1959.	The Cisco Kid, Del FC #32, July/Sept 1956.	Gypsy Colt , Del FC #568, 1954.

Savitt was fearless in his approach to illustration. Of special note is the cover of Zane Grey's Stories of the West (number 28 titled "The Gunfighter") and the photo of Savitt himself posing for reference. He wasn't satisfied just painting an outlaw evading capture on a running horse; Savitt painted his subjects running at a foreshortened three-quarter pose and from a bug's eye point of view. Obviously, Savitt could pose himself for reference but he had to come up with the position of the horse out of his head. His expertise with horses was a great advantage when he was asked to paint horses in any situation an art director could suggest. He could render a hunter jumper as masterfully as he could paint a bronc rider. When Western Printing needed a cover for its comic book adaptation of the 1959 MGM mega-movie spectacular Ben-Hur (#1052), they got Savitt to do the honors.

Savitt posing for a Dell's Comics Silvertip cover, 1950's.

Savitt's Dell Comic covers have been reproduced on lunch boxes, puzzles, pocket knifes and even rodeo posters, most of the time with no credit. His comic book covers, which are reprinted worldwide, have shown up in some impressive places. A half-dozen Trigger covers are on permanent display at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in California (Savitt's brother Al illustrated many of the interiors). The prestigious Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Los Angeles has copies of Gene Autry's Champion covers in its archives of which Savitt painted 26. Savitt's covers have been reproduced in books on The Lone Ranger. He painted three Lone Ranger comic book covers and all 36 of the Hi-Yo Silver covers. Hi-Yo Silver is arguably one of the best western comics from the 1950s. Dell focused a powerhouse of writing and drawing talents to produce this western masterpiece and all available in a single comic book for the modest price of ten cents!

I had part of my Savitt comic book collection with me when I interviewed him in 1996 at his home in New Salem. Many covers he hadn't seen in forty years. Although he confirmed all as his work, he couldn't remember what he painted for Dell Comics. He was amazed at how prolific he'd been early in his career. When I showed him the Ben-Hur cover, his comment was, "No I don't remember anything about it but it's mine and I had a ball doing it."

Savitt gave each comic cover 100 per cent and it was obvious that he took great joy in his assignments. However, he saw them not only as weekly challenges, but also as income and as opportunities to move on to greener pastures. It didn't seem to bother Savitt that Dell gave him no credit. He told me, "I never thought of those things. I never thought about copyright and all that. I did the job." The comic book industry was notorious at first for not acknowledging individuals, never mind an artist's rights, royalty fees, and the return of original art. In the world of comic books, Savitt's name remained largely unknown for decades. In 1995 the prestigious Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the blue book on comic book collecting, finally recognized Sam for his Dell covers. Essays on Savitt eventually appeared in The Comic Book Buyer's Guide, the best-known weekly journal on the genre.

Zane Grey's Stories of the West, Del #996, 1959.	Zane Grey's Stories of the West, Del #28, 1956. Savitt posing for cover above.	Zane Grey's Stories of the West, Del #27, 1955.

Years after finishing work for Dell, Savitt returned to Western Printing in hopes of salvaging some of his originals, but by then it was too late. They had long since disappeared. He was able to locate only 3 of the 147 covers he had painted.

Work Methods and Mediums
Whether with dry media such as pencils and charcoal, to wet media such as oils, gouache, casein, watercolor and ink, Savitt relished in the choreography of color, line, tone and shape. He was always experimenting, seeing what he could and couldn't do. He was constantly testing the waters with regards to technique.

Savitt didn't just draw with pencils, he painted with them by employing a variety of graphite tips to arrive at the desired results. He would combine lead points right out of a sharpener with wedged points to get a halftone effects. With Savitt's solid classical formal art training, he learned that the foundation of any good painting was a good drawing. He worked out most of the problems he faced in his painting with pencil and conté crayons. He worked out the composition and values in black and white before he began painting.

Similarly, Savitt didn't just paint with brushes in a slow rendered manner, he drew with them. His media of choice was gouache, primarily because of its brilliance, its quick drying time and it didn't have to be varnished. Another reason Savitt preferred gouache was because it could be washed away for a fresh start. (Gouache, a water-based medium that is primarily applied opaque, can be put down thinly, although it is never as transparent as watercolor.) Speed was important when working for print publications because deadlines were critical. There were also times when corrections were necessary and oil would take to long to dry.

Savitt knew that his skills as a draftsman were superficial at best without a solid foundation in equine anatomy, dynamics, psychology and history. He also sketched from living horses, working quickly just to capture the action with a few lines on paper. Once back in the studio, Savitt was able to transform his visual shorthand into more realized work. Like any good horseman, observing horses was one of his great natural talents.

Savitt's painting approach was a tight drawing but a loose attack. He did his preliminary drawing on a kind of vellum/tracing paper, and then he would lay a graphite tone in back of the paper. Next he attached it to his working surface securely so it wouldn't move, then trace it on his working surface making sure to stay within the boundaries of the illustration. He could then flip it back, and it was always on the same spot. Savitt did not use canvas but top illustration board (Whatman Board or Bainbridge 80) because the surfaces could take heavy beatings without degrading, a big advantage with regards to corrections.

Zane Grey's Stories of the West, Del #31, 1956.	The Lone Ranger , Del #84, June, 1955. Sam's brother, Al Savitt posing for cover above.	Son of Black Beauty, Del #566, 1954.

Savitt used waterproof ink to tighten his transferred drawing so that, in the event of a mistake while painting, he could wash off the gouache pigment and the drawing would still be visible. He would first lay a general tone over the illustration board, then work into the tones with the drawing showing through. Savitt began with wide brushes and bold, quick strokes. As he defined his subject, he would switch to smaller brushes for a more detailed and refined work. As he roughed in the background texture, such as clouds and sky, the pigments would get more opaque and partially obscure his traced drawing. He could always retrace over the dried pigments if necessary by flipping the vellum drawing of his subject back over his surface, which would save him from having to dig down and lose all the paint he was building up.

Savitt's weeks of preliminary work allowed him to work quickly in his final execution. The final product always suffered when he took shortcuts. He produced many rough drafts to get a horse's action and expression right, while at the same time making sure the equipment and attire were authentic.

Savitt, who saw the composition as a whole, really had a feel for art far removed from just horses. Other elements, such as human subjects, clothing, and terrain, weren't simply background but filled out the painting and rendered it complete. In this way, it can be said that Savitt's classic Dell covers stand as fine western paintings.

When it came to oils, Savitt often began a painting with a very bold and direct casein lay in. Casein reminded him of working in gouache, as it, too, is water-based. When the casein stage was finished, he would varnish it to pick up the light and then work his oil pigments right on top. Savitt did not use speed driers with oil paints; instead, he used very little medium and a lot of turpentine for his primary lay in. When the painting was finished one couldn't tell which areas were casein and which were oil. Savitt's technical approach to painting was the subject of a 1973 publication by the M. Grumbacher Company, The Art of Painting Horses.

Savitt provided horses with the personality one usually finds only in human beings, and in doing so, he also captured their souls. Although he never tried to improve on a horse's God-given beauty, to simply refer to Savitt as a representational painter would miss the mark. He abstracted his subject matter to the extent that any master painter would with regards to composition and good design. Savitt took great care to render horses with the utmost accuracy, but he emphasized and distorted only for effect.

While his approach was a realistic depiction of equine nature, the artistic license he took served to accentuate the nobility and spirit innate in horses. When he blended that foundation with his powerful imagination, the result was one equine masterpiece after another. As with Degas and his ballerinas, Savitt used the endless variety of action poses that horses are capable of to convey beauty and movement. He was often quoted as saying, "To draw horses, I think, is to take a test on how well you know them. You have to know all the shapes of a horse's anatomy and understand how it works. You have to be able to make a horse do anything it could do in real life. And what's more, you have to be able to do this from memory and a knowledge of your subject."

The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #16, Oct/Dec 1955.	The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #30, April/June 1959.	The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #20, Oct/Dec 1956.
Roy Roger's Trigger, Del #15, Dec/Feb 1955.	Roy Roger's Trigger, Del #16, Mar/May 1955.	Roy Roger's Trigger, Del #7, Dec/Feb 1953.

 

The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #27, July/Sept 1958.	The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #30, April/June 1959.	The Lone Ranger's Hi Yo Silver , Del #369, 1951.
Max Brand's Silvertip, Del #835, 1957.	Max Brand's Silvertip, Del #731, 1956.	Rusty Riley Del #418, 1952.

Magazines and Books
From his experience illustrating comic books, pulps and magazines, it was inevitable that Savitt would find work in the field of book publishing. Beginning in the 1940s Savitt worked for Fiction House, Dell, Popular, Argosy and Standard Publications who put out a whole series of pulp magazines such as Ranch Romances.  He contributed regularly to such periodicals as True, Real (For Men), Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, American Weekly, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Chronicle of the Horse, Boy's Life, Country Gentleman, Practical Horseman and Equus.  A "Draw Horses with Sam Savitt" page appeared monthly in Western Horseman magazine off and on for years. Whenever an equine related project came along, Savitt would go for it. Although his specialty was horses, Savitt painted a variety of animal subjects, especially dogs. A typical work procedure between Savitt and a book editor would be to first agree on a cover concept and technique. Next Savitt would concentrate on interior illustrations. As he read a manuscript he was always looking for interesting picture spots, getting at least one in each chapter.

The first book Savitt illustrated was Learning to Ride, Hunt and Show for well-known riding instructor Gordon Wright. Wright was friends with Savitt's boyhood hero, illustrator Paul Brown, and had originally asked Brown to illustrate the book. Brown was too busy and, being familiar with Savitt's work, recommended him. Savitt lived in the area and went to Wright's riding academy with his portfolio and for an evaluation of his horsemanship. Wright saw that Savitt had raw talent as a horseman and agreed to trade riding lessons for book illustrations. Savitt's formal education with horses started with Wright. The illustrations Savitt produced for Learning to Ride, Hunt and Show are not merely utilitarian; his horses came alive as part of the learning process of becoming a good rider. In action scenes, which Savitt preferred, his horses positively leap off the page.

As a creative person, Savitt was not only motivated to paint horses, but eventually he felt the need to write about them. He was at first cautious about his writing ability but was convinced by his editor to be himself. He recalled that his idol, the legendary western painter and author Will James, was not edited either. James' editors had the wisdom to let him write in his own voice, retaining an authentic cowboy feel.

Step-a-Bit. The Story of a Foal, by Sam Savitt, 1956

 

The first book Savitt wrote was Step A-Bit, Story of a Foal. When he first came up with the idea, he had been making drawings of a foal from the time it was born through its first days growing up.

 

 

 

 

Drawings above from Step-a-Bit. The Story of a Foal, 1956

One day it occurred to Savitt that maybe he ought to send photostats of his sketches to different publishers. Sharon Banagan, editor at E. P. Dutton, made Savitt an offer. "I want you to do this book just the way these sketches are made, right off the top of your head. Don't embellish them, and don't try to get photographs in it, just use these drawings," she suggested. That's what he did. When they were completed she asked,  "Write some words to pull it together."  Savitt replied, "I can't write." Banagan suggested, "Oh sure you can, just little simple sentences. This is his first day out, etc." And that's how it started.

Savitt's second book was the more ambitious Midnight: Champion Bucking Horse, which received the Boy's Clubs of America Award. Bucking horses were a specialty of Savitt's and the subject of several of his books including Rodeo: Cowboys, Bulls and Broncos. Sam Savitt, a westerner at heart with similar sensibilities to Will James, was also strongly motivated by a love for horses. Savitt once remarked, "His horses were always horses. He never did things with them that made them not horses. He touched you with what the horses did."  The horse was just being a horse, and just being a horse was enough.

	Great Horses of the US Equestrian Team by Sam Savitt and Bill Steinkraus.
The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell, 1959.	Mountain Pony and the Pinto Colt by Henry V Larom. Pocket Books, 1951.	Tiger Roan by Glenn Balch. Pocket Books, 1950.

Savitt went on to write and co-write 17 books on horses. His Draw Horses With Sam Savitt is considered a classic in the field and continues to be reprinted. Wild Horse Running won the Literary Guild Award. Over his career Savitt illustrated more than 135 books by other authors.

Loco the Bronc by Patsey Gray, 1961.	Wild Horse Running by Sam Savitt, 1973.	My Mane Catches the Wind by Lee Bennett Hopkins, 1979.

Black Horse Press
Savitt knew that his success as an illustrator was due to a large part to the support of his wife Bette Orkin. He could not have been the artist he became without her. She took over the business aspects of his career, freeing him to concentrate on his work. In 1963 she started Black Horse Press, a home-based business, to publish, market and distribute his work. Bette ran the business from a studio that they shared on the top floor of their home in North Salem.

Black Horse Press became a cottage industry, offering a number of items such as posters, portfolios, prints, charts, books, original art, etc. Their first project was the "Sam Savitt's Guide To Horses" chart produced by a printer who lived down the road. It was he who suggested that they always prefix titles with Savitt's name. Savitt's illustrated horse charts have been used by a number of encyclopedias including Grolier's, and as teaching aids by the Smithsonian Institute. "Sam Savitt's Guide to Horses" went on to sell more than half a million copies. Eventually an entire Savitt series of large, full-color charts were offered depicting a wide range of equestrian subjects from dressage to rodeo. Black Horse Press was later bought by Half Halt Press.

Special Assignments, Gallery Work, Private Commissions and Awards Savitt's work can be found on place mats, coasters, mugs, and so forth. In the late 1960s, a series of 500-piece jigsaw puzzles were released through Springbok Editions. Savitt painted a number of colorful horse-related motifs, including a circular puzzle celebrating the Racing Hall of Fame, and octagon puzzles titled "International Horse Jumping" and "Mares and Foals." Savitt was named the official artist for the United States Equestrian Team in 1956. In 1968 he was commissioned to cover the equestrian events at the Olympic Games in Mexico. He also executed a poster in 1991 for the Kentucky Derby and covered the 1992 Grand National in England for Equus magazine.

Real for Men Cover Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 6, March, 1953.

Savitt did not differentiate commercial art from easel art, because for him they were the same thing. He viewed all of his work as fine art. Savitt earned a reputation as one of this country's finest equestrian artists, and articles on him followed in such publications as Equus, Equine Images and  Chronicle of the Horse. He had a number of one-man exhibitions, and his equestrian paintings and drawings are in many private collections, including the Grumbacker Collection, August Busch, Raymond Firestone and Jean Kennedy Smith.

In 1982, while Savitt was in Kentucky judging an art show at the Red Mile Track, he took a day to visit Claiborne Farms, the home of Triple Crown racing legend Secretariat. Savitt was given a close look at the great thoroughbred. He made sketches and, once back in his studio, he began a portrait. The oil painting was purchased by a private collector soon after it was completed.

A private commission of note by Savitt was done in 1985 for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst Jr. Savitt did the cover and a series of interior paintings and drawings for a limited edition book titled Horses of San Simeon. Only 1,500 copies were produced, and each came signed with a handsome outer sleeve and over 275 pages of artwork, photos and text. Savitt and his wife stayed at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon while he was working on the project.

In 1986 Savitt received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Horseman's Association, which also honored him as "Equine Artist of Distinction." Equus magazine referred to him in its 10th anniversary issue as one of the "movers and shakers in the horse world." He was the only artist honored.

Drawing and Painting Workshops Savitt gave drawing and painting workshops across the country, sharing techniques he'd developed over the years. He instructed his students in horse anatomy and in techniques for drawing from memory. His classes began with a concentration on drawing fundamentals, then moved on to painting the standing horse and finally advancing action poses. Savitt also recognized that being able to draw enabled his students to correct distortions found in photographs, which were a common mistake novices made. Savitt said, "In order to create a good painting of a horse from life or from a photograph, an artist must paint what he or she knows in addition to what he sees, and he must know a great deal more than he sees." He complained that, "Many equestrian painters today do not really draw horses. They copy with paint all the lights and darks they see in a photograph, but what they do not seem to know is that photographs often distort form. Unless an artist understands the construction of the horse and how it functions, his pictures are no more than a meaningless collection of light and dark areas."

Real for Men Cover Illustration, June, 1953.

Savitt gave seminars at the Equine Artists Workshop in Tryon, North Carolina, and the Scottsdale Artist's School in Arizona. He was a founding member of the American Academy of Equine Art in Lexington, Kentucky, and served as its Dean of Education.

Savitt loved to teach and related to it as "a two way thing. It was gratifying. I had to reevaluate a lot of the things that I did automatically so I could help somebody. I could do a thing and think nothing of it, but what if I'm trying to explain it to somebody? What do I do? So I had to think of things like that. And it made it interesting for me. . ."