The Pen-and-Ink Drawings of George A. Bradshaw

A view of Riverview Cemetery
by George A. Bradshaw,
ca.1935

George A. Bradshaw (1880-1968), a Trenton native, was a noted etcher whose work focused on historic sites in Trenton and elsewhere in New Jersey, and city, land and seascapes in the northeastern United States and Canadian Maritimes. He began his studies at Trenton's School of Industrial Arts in 1915 and quickly mastered the art of drawing and etching. After graduating in 1921 he became an instructor there until his retirement in 1945.

He was a member of the Brooklyn Society of Etchers and its successor, the Society of American Graphic Artists, as well as the Chicago Society of Etchers, the North Shore Artists Association, and the Salmagundi Club.

Bradshaw provided the illustrations for, among others, A History of Trenton, 1629-1929, Two Hundred and Fifty Years of a Notable Town with Links in Four Centuries, a two-volume work published under the auspices of the Trenton Historical Society. The preface noted that in Bradshaw "Trenton possesses an artist whose pen-drawings and etchings have served to make his work favorably known beyond the confines of this locality."

He received many awards for his works which were widely exhibited across the nation, and was also recognized in "Fine Prints of the Year, 1929" for an interior of the chapel at Princeton University, and again in "Fine Prints of the Year, 1935" for an arch of the library of Princeton University.