Peckwell was born and raised inNew York City, where he also spent his career. In 1883 he married Emma Mackenzie (1853–1934). In 1905, they resided at The Alpine apartment building at Broadway and 32nd Street.[1] He was an active member of theNew York Athletic Club over the course of several decades.[2][3][4][5] He died in November 1936 and is interred at theGreen-Wood Cemetery inBrooklyn, New York.
Peckwell'swood engravings were part of the "new school" of wood engraving in the last decades of the 19th century, and his work employed and advanced that school's innovatory and more subtle techniques.[6] The persistence of finely crafted hand-done wood engravings in the face of modernphotoengraving was also noted in the 1897Columbian Cyclopedia, which noted in its entry on "wood-engraving" that Peckwell was "among the most noted and skillful of the present school."[7]
He was also numbered among a group of "splendid engravers" by the "Brooklyn Museum Quarterly" in 1916.[8]
His engravings, usually after paintings by other artists, appeared not only in national magazines such asScribner's andHarper's, but were also collected inprimers such asThe Children's Second Reader byEllen M. Cyr.
1915: Peckwell's "Midsummer" after Henry Moore, and "A Story Without Words" afterHoward Pyle, exhibition of American wood engraving, the American Institute Of Graphic Arts.[12]
^"Brooklyn Museum Quarterly." New York: Institute of Arts & Sciences, 1916, page 59.
^Franks, Sir Augustus Wollaston. "Franks Bequest: Catalogue of British and American Book Plates Bequeathed To the Trustees Of the British Museum," vol 2. London: William Clowe, 1904, page 344.
^"Proceedings Of the Board Of Trustees Of the College Of the City Of New York." New York: W.P. Mitchell & Sons, 1909, page 153.
^"Catalogue of the Exhibition of Fine Arts," Buffalo, New York, 1901, page 62.
^"An Exhibition Of American Wood Engraving." New York: The American Institute Of Graphic Arts, 1915, catalogue entries 212 and 306.
Anthony, Andrew Varick Stout, Timothy Cole, and Elbridge Kingsley. "Wood Engraving: Three Essays, With a List of American Books Illustrated With Woodcuts." New York: The Grolier Club, 1916.
Brooks, Stratton Duluth. Peckwell, et al., illus. "Brook's Readers, Third Year." New York: American Book Company, 1906.
Johnson, Robert Underwood, and Clarence Clough Buel. Peckwell, et al., illus. "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War." New York: The Century Co., 1887.
