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SIGNATURES
Identified individuals are represented by a biographical sketch, a list of connections to other signatures, and, in most cases, an artifact from the Ransom Centers collections. Help us identify more signatures by submitting your suggested identification.
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THE DOOR
Location on door: back, panel 5
IVAN OPFFER
Artist Ivan Opffer (1897-1980) is remembered for his portraits of writers and other notable figures. Born in Denmark, Opffer moved with his family first to Mexico and then New York. His brother Emil, a merchant seaman, was the romantic muse of Hart Crane's poetic sequence Voyages. Together with artist William Saphier, Ivan Opffer contributed caricatures of literati to Witter Bynner's Pins for Wings (1920), which was published by another New York City bookshop, The Sunwise Turn. He also published his caricatures in the Dial, Bookman, and other periodicals. In the early twenties, Opffer left the United States for Paris where he continued to produce portraits.
Ivan Opffer's Portrait of James Joyce, 1922
Joyce was one of many writers whom Opffer drew over the course of his career. Others included Edgar Lee Masters, Siegfried Sassoon, George Bernard Shaw, Carl Sandburg, G. K. Chesterton, and Thomas Mann.