Edgar Franklin Wittmack was born July 10, 1894 in New York City. He was an illustrator and cover artist for many of the most popular magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. His covers, just as the artwork of his contemporary, Norman Rockwell, were usually created as oil paintings. Where Rockwell specialized in the humorous aspects of small town life, Wittmack dealt mainly with male-oriented interests. He often painted heroic or action-type figures for The Saturday Evening Post.

Wittmack also painted a mural of the oil tanker World Glory for the New York City office of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchros. His last assignments were posters for the National Drive to Employ the Handicapped, which were published posthumously.