Illustration for “There Are No Ordinary Men in Iowa,” Saturday Evening Post, May 10, 1947.

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Albert Dorne, born to such New York poverty, by age 10 he was working on escaping the single mom with 4 kids in the slums life he'd been born to

he skipped school, and hung out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made friends with the guards and docents, and was the youngest ever given a pass to paint and draw in the galleries. By 7th grade, he dropped out of school, to earn money with art, and his teachers made a pact not to turn him in to the truancy officers, knowing school was a waste of his life, and he was destined for better under his own stewardship. 

He sold newspapers, more cleverly than other newsies, by picking a better location. Not the highest trafficked, but the location with the best tippers. By age 12, he'd hired 4 other kids to man spots he picked out.

While he worked as a newsboy, Dorne continued to look for more work. He sometimes held three jobs at once. He became a milkman’s helper, an office boy for a chain of movie theaters, a shipping clerk, a salesman, and a loading dock worker. He painted faces on porcelain dolls on a factory assembly line and when he turned sixteen he even became a prizefighter, boxing 10 matches as a middleweight at Madison Square Garden

Having taught himself to draw, he found a job illustrating sheet music. He was paid a total of four dollars for his first picture, but he continued to improve and soon he was earning $90 per week as a letterer. He took a full time job in a commercial art studio, drawing low-budget ads for an array of small time clients.

He apprenticed as a letterer with then-letterer and future prominent illustrator Saul Tepper before beginning a five-year stint at the commercial art studio of Alexander Rice. He left the studio to begin a freelance career and soon his illustrations started appearing in such magazines as Life, Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post and by 1943 was featured on the cover of 'American Artist' magazine, recognized as 'one of the best and highest paid in the field of advertising illustration.'

Eventually, Dorne became the wealthiest illustrator in America, the president of the Society of Illustrators, and the founder of the international Famous Artists School in 1948 with the assistance of Norman Rockwell. Faculty included colleagues Al Parker, Austin Briggs, Rube Goldberg, and several others. The Famous Artists School correspondence course influenced generations of artists. 

He drove a custom made Mercedes with a burled walnut dashboard and a pull-out bar. His steering wheel featured a silver plaque with Dorne’s initials and a large star sapphire.

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