Griffith Harold "Grif" Teller (December 9, 1899 – April 8, 1993) was an artist best known for his paintings for the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

Early life

Teller was born on December 9, 1899 in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Barringer High School Barringer Academy of the Arts & Humanities (formerly Barringer High School and Newark High School), is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Newark, in Essex County, New Jersey, United ...

until his junior year, when he transferred to the Fawcett School of Industrial Arts. With what started as a temporary job with the Osborne Company, an advertising and color calendar company, towards the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Teller was hired permanently after showing the head of Osborne's Designing Department some of his paintings. He was a long-time resident of

Little Falls, New Jersey Little Falls is a township in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. The township was named for a waterfall on the Passaic River at a dam near Beattie Mill. As of the 2020 census, the township's population was 13,360 reflecting a decrea ...

Career

Main Lines—Freight and Passenger by Grif Teller, 1949

Mass Transportation (Army-Navy Game) by Grif Teller, 1955

In 1927, Teller was given an assignment to paint the 1928

wall calendar A calendar is used to display dates and related information, usually in a table format. Calendars are used to plan future events and keep track of appointments, and so a typical calendar will include days of the week, week numbering, months, publ ...

scene for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania returned to Teller the next year, and he eventually painted all of the calendar scenes for their calendars up to 1942. Other artists were contracted to paint the artwork for the calendar during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, as the Pennsylvania was favoring more patriotic scenes. Teller painted for the Pennsylvania once again after the war, starting with the 1947 calendar. The Osborne Company was sold to a competitor in 1953, eventually causing Teller to be

laid off A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...

. He continued to paint for the Pennsylvania as a

freelancer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

, until the railroad discontinued full-size wall calendars in 1959. His freelance work, which encompassed both railroad and non-railroad subjects, continued into the 1980s. Teller's 1928 painting, ''When the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

Meets the Dawn'', was used as the background for the "Preserve Our Heritage" special-fund license plate introduced in 1998 by

PennDOT The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) oversees transportation issues in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The administrator of PennDOT is the Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation, currently Yassmin Gramian. Presently, Pe ...

to help fund

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) is the governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responsible for the collection, conservation and interpretation of Pennsylvania's historic heritage. The commission cares for ...

programs, which receives $23 of the $55 fee for each of those license plates, which are still sold today.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Teller, Grif 1899 births 1993 deaths Landscape artists People from Little Falls, New Jersey Artists from Newark, New Jersey Barringer High School alumni Pennsylvania Railroad people Painters from New Jersey 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American male artists