On this day, December 4, 1884, Lawrence Sterne Stevens was born in Pontiac, Michigan. At 21 Stevens moved to Minneapolis to work as a newspaper pressman and cartoonist. While there he studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and then in Antwerp at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After WWI Stevens worked as a designer and illustrator for GM in Belgium and then after Germany declared war on Poland he and his family moved to New York City.

L S Stevens