Frederick Coffay Yohn

(Feb. 8, 1875 -June 6, 1933). Born in Indianapolis, Yohn was a pupil of William Forsyth. His first commercial assignments were sketches for Ernest P. Bicknell’s Indianapolis Illustrated (1893), and the Indianapolis News.

In 1894, he moved to New York where he studied at the Art Students League. Hired by Harper and Brothers, he became popular for his illustrations in Theodore Roosevelt’s Frontier Sketches and Henry Cabot Lodge’s Story Of The American Revolution. His work appeared regularly in Harper’s, Scribner’s, and Collier’s Weekly. He also provided illustrations for Meredith Nicholson‘s A Hoosier Chronicle, The Hero Of Vincennes by Lowell Thomas, and Maurice Thompson’s Alice Of Old Vincennes.

Yohn’s forte was accuracy of expression as well as a preference for heavy composition and plenty of action. He and his publisher gave his oil painting, The Fall Of Ft. Sackville, to the Indiana Historical Bureau. This painting became the subject of a U.S. postage stamp issued February 25, 1929, on the 150^th anniversary of the surrender of Ft. Sackville, and it was also widely reproduced during the years of the nation’s bicentennial celebration.

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