ORIGINAL DUST JACKET ARTWORK FOR "THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN"

N. P.: Winifred Earl Lefferts, 1935., 1935. First edition. [Stout, Rex]. Original dust jacket artwork by Winfred Earl Lefferts, for the first edition of Rex Stout's Haycraft-Queen cornerstone title. Signed as "W. E. L." "Beautifully executed in oil and color marker in post-deco style. Very likely the best of the early jacket designs by Lefferts for the Nero Wolfe novels, displaying a bright thread of orchids, behind which one sees a silhouette of Nero Wolfe, pondering, the brew at his side. The only original Stout artwork by Lefferts ever offered for sale. Art size is 10 1/2" x 12," attractively and archivally double-matted and framed to a size of 19" x 17." Wikipedia says, "Winifred Earl Lefferts (October 9, 1903, Newtonville, Massachusetts – November 1995, Blandford, Massachusetts), also known as Winifred Lefferts Arms, was a painter, designer and philanthropist. A member of the Lefferts family, early settlers of Brooklyn, she studied and exhibited art, and designed for New York book publishers prior to her 1937 marriage to Carleton Macy. Following her marriage to Robert A. Arms in 1952 she painted as Winifred L. Arms. After the death of her second husband she became known for philanthropy and for founding a private residential treatment center in Carmel, New York, named Arms Acres. The daughter of Oscar Leffert Lefferts and Winifred Wood, Winifred Earl Lefferts was born into a socially prominent family. Her mother was descended from Francis Fauquier, Colonial lieutenant governor of Virginia, and Major Nathan Peters of Connecticut, aide to General George Washington. Through her father Lefferts was descended from Oliver Wolcott, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; Matthew Griswold, governor of Connecticut; and Pieter Lefferts, an early Dutch settler of Brooklyn. Winifred Lefferts studied at the Pratt Institute Art School and the National Academy of Design in New York. She won a fellowship from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 1925, and received prizes from the National Arts Club in 1931, 1933 and 1936. She held membership in the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, the New York Watercolor Club, the American Watercolor Society and the Allied Artists of America." "Lefferts illustrated books and designed dust jackets for American book publishers in the 1920s and 1930s. Books that credit her as illustrator include Elaine Sterne Carrington's The Gypsy Star (1928) and Laura E. Richards' 1935 book of children's verses, Merry-Go-Round. Lefferts' name or her distinctive "W.E.L." signature appears on many book jackets, including the U.S. edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Casuarina Tree (1926), DuBose Heyward's Angel (1926) and M. P. Shiel's Dr. Krasinski's Secret (1929). She designed covers for Rex Stout's How Like a God (1929) and Seed on the Wind (1930), and for three of Stout's early Nero Wolfe novels ... The League of Frightened Men (1935), The Rubber Band (1936) and The Red Box (1937)." Very fine condition.