William Henry Cotton (American, 1880 to 1958).
William Cotton painted portraits, wrote two Broadway plays, and in his day was one of the best known caricaturists in the country. He studied at the Cowles Art School in Boston and at the Academie Julian in Paris. A portrait painter, he founded the National Association of Portrait Painters. He worked for Vanity Fair from 1931 to 1936 as an illustrator. Eleanor Roosevelt deemed his drawing of her for Vanity Fair, “her favorite character picture.” From 1932 on, he was one of the illustrators of the “profile” department of the New Yorker magazine.
Information courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries, June 2008.