Martyl Langsdorf

Martyl Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf (March 16, 1917 – March 26, 2013) was an American artist who created the Doomsday Clock image for the June 1947 cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[1]

Life and career
"Cyrus Tiffany in the Battle of Lake Erie, September 13, 1813," mural by Martyl Schweig Langsdorf in the Record of Deeds building, Washington, D.C.

Martyl was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother was a painter and her father a portrait photographer. She earned a degree from Washington University in St. Louis. In 1942 she married physicist Alexander Langsdorf, Jr. who worked on the Manhattan Project. They had two daughters, Alexandra and Suzanne.

Alexander helped found the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1945 and in 1947 Martyl created the Doomsday Clock image for their first June 1947. She thought a clock, set at seven minutes to midnight, would convey "a sense of urgency."[2] The Doomsday Clock illustration was the only magazine cover she ever created. Both before and after that project, she painted abstract landscapes and murals. Her mural work includes an oil on canvas mural titled Wheat Workers for the Russell, Kansas post office, commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, and completed in 1940.[3]

She died of complications of a lung infection in Schaumburg, Illinois.[4]

References
  1. Yardley, William (April 10, 2013). Martyl Langsdorf, Doomsday Clock Designer, Dies at 96. New York Times
  2. "Doomsday Clock FAQ". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
  3. "Post Office - Russell Kansas". livingnewdeal.org. Living New Deal. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  4. Kates, Joan Giangrasse (April 9, 2013). Martyl Langsdorf: 1917-2013: Artist who designed Doomsday Clock. Chicago Tribune


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