On April 29, 1903, sixty orchestra members from the Metropolitan Grand Opera House in New York City performed at Scranton’s Watres Armory. Scranton artists, Sarah Leona Farley and P. W. Costello, were hired to illustrate the cover and business ads that were included in the 34-page program.

When Sarah Farley set up her art studio in downtown Scranton in 1902, she was 24 years old and a recent graduate of the Art Students League in New York City. In this ad for her own business, she highlighted the name of her art school, four of her art teachers, all nationally renowned, and the art services that she offered, including, illustrated advertising and book cover designing. For the opera patron, she identified seven other business ads that she illustrated in the program. She added her studio address and signed her last name at the top. To demonstrate her illustration skills, she “bookended” the ad with a portrait of a horse and a self-portrait of her playing the violin.The drawings are described below.

Farley played the violin from an early age into adulthood. She performed in concerts in Scranton and, later, at her Congregational Church in West Lebanon, NH.

This pencil, charcoal and watercolor drawing is a rare self-portrait of the artist.

Horses were one of Sarah Farley’s favorite art subjects, going back to her high school years in Warwick, NY. In Oct. 1900, when Sarah was an art student in New York City, she ran an ad in the Warwick Valley Dispatch for “black & white drawings from life” in varying sizes for “horsemen and lovers of horses.”  

This horse portrait, drawn two years later, is similar in style and color. It was drawn with pencil and charcoal. She added light gray watercolor to the horse’s mane, its reins and to the background.

Entitled, “Captivated,” Farley’s illustration of a winged cherub, who is holding a bow and arrow and admiring a photograph, is the centerpiece of an ad for a frame shop that also processed photos.  She added flowers, leaves and stems at bottom.

Farley illustrated this monogram for the Brooks and Sanderson Shoe Co. using perspective and shading to give an angled look to both letters.

Here Farley used a clever design (a 12-member marching band) to spell out the 8-letter name of the RICHMOND Men’s Shoe Store in Scranton.  The ad is an impressive demonstration of Farley’s cartooning and caricature skills, learned at the Art Students League in New York City. 

Farley’s detailed illustration of a mansion is the centerpiece of an ad for a Scranton contractor and builder.  She also hand-lettered and decorated the text of the ad.  She used a pen and black ink to draw the house and trees, and groupings of parallel lines to shade and give shape to objects. 

In an attractive ad for the E. Schmpff Jewelry Store, Farley drew necklaces, pendants, broaches, stick pins, rings and ribbons.

Mrs. Sara Allyn was a hair stylist, manicurist and podiatrist in the Mears Building in downtown Scranton.  In this ad, Farley portrayed Mrs. Allyn giving a male patron a manicure. The lines and style of both drawings show the infuence of illustrator, Charles Dana Gibson.

Farley beautifully illustrated this ad for Guernsey Hall, a large retail store on N. Washington Ave. that sold a variety of string and wind instruments.  She drew a piano, at center, a horn, bottom left, followed by a lute, a violin and guitar in the other corners.  In the background she penned an elaborate design of acanthus leaves, flowers, winding stems and other foliage. In art school, Farley would have studied the work of William Morris (1834-1896), famous British textile designer who was part of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England. This piece shows his influence.