Only people who have died appear here, plus the firms. Living relatives are left out on purpose.
The Schorr family
The full year-by-year record and family tree is on Joseph Schorr: Biography and Family.
Joseph Isaac Schorr
Ran Schorr Sign Service in Glendale, Queens and registered the Laundesigns. Show card writer. A veteran, per his BIRLS record, though no enlistment record has been found. Died 15 April 2006 in Metuchen, New Jersey. Documented.
Nathan Schorr
Sign painter, Joseph’s father. Died 1944. Documented.
Herbert Schorr
Joseph’s brother, also a sign painter, with his own business in Queens by 1950. Died 1991 in Florida. Documented.
Harry D. Sandler
Joseph’s brother in law, a commercial artist at K Art Studios, 119 West 33rd Street, Manhattan, later a watercolourist in Florida. Died 2005. Documented. Whether he drew any of the sign figures is unknown, and none of his work has turned up to compare.
Firms in the story
Schorr Sign Service
67-15 Myrtle Avenue, then 67-43 from 1963, Glendale, Queens. Maker of the Laundesigns.
Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio
A clip art service in Pleasantville, New York. Its late 1950s cartoon sheets share the style. All 32 interior sheets from 1954 to 1963 on Bart Solenthaler’s Flickr were checked, and no sign figure is among them. The only named Volk artist, Tom Sawyer, drew in a realistic style.
Other clip art services
Multi-Ad, Stivers, Cobb Shinn and Underwood were all checked. No matching art.
Paula
A maker of humorous prints. A 1964 registration is signed T. Wilfono, probably Wilfong. No proven link to the signs.
Allan K. Jensen
Audubon, Iowa. Sold laundromat posters from 1961 to 1979. Earlier notes treated Maytag and Jensen as two competitors; they are the same seller. The one printed sample found, a sheepdog poster from 1968, is no copy of Schorr’s work.
Marlite
Maker of the hardboard the signs were screened on, per Schorr’s 1962 ads.
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