Adrien Machefert Biography

Adrien Machefert

American

1880-1953

Biography

Painter, printmaker, cartoonist, and muralist Adrien Claude Machefert was born in San Jose, California on November 29, 1880. His formal art training took place at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco, and he was an illustrator member of the Pleiades Book Club of New York in 1910. Machefert married Margaret MacRae in February of 1915 in New York City. They lived on the island of Majorca, Spain from 1920 to 1935 before returning to the states to take a job with the Federal Art Project branch of the WPA as a muralist. He executed several murals throughout Southern California, including "The Life and Travels of Richard Henry Dana", which still resides at Dana Middle School in San Pedro.

Machefert was employed as a cartoonist and illustrator by the The New Yorker, Harper's, Everybody's Magazine, and a variety of newpapers including the Washington Post and the Salt Lake City Gazette. He exhibited with the California Art Club in 1935 and at the New York World's Fair in 1939. His work is included in the graphics collection of the Library of Congress. 

Adrien C. Machefert died in Glendale, California on September 29, 1953.