James Hamlin Gardner Soper (1877–1939) was an American artist and illustrator. His work appeared in numerous magazines of the pre-WWI era, including The Delineator, Scribner’s, and The Century Magazine.
He was elected to The Lambs in 1914. Gardner-Soper painted portraits of three Shepherds of The Lambs: Albert O. Brown, Fritz Williams, Thomas Wise.
James Hamlin Gardner Soper was born on a farm near Flint, Michigan, on July 17, 1877. Soper abandoned a law career and moved to New York where he sold drawings to Life, Collier’s and Scribner’s magazines. After a brief period in Paris at Académie Julian, he returned to New York where he was soon sought after as a portraitist.
In 1920 he wed Elsie Bryant Jenvey in Hoboken, New Jersey. The couple resided at 12 Gramercy Park South, Manhattab. Two years later they departed the city; in Honolulu, Hawaii, Gardner-Soper was painting portraits.
In 1923, Gardner Soper went to Los Angeles on a portrait commission and opted to open a studio on Sunset Boulevard. He painted portraits of the local elite and exhibited locally. Among his portraits were Hedda Hopper, wife of ex-Shepherd DeWolf Hopper, Lamb Robert Edeson and Lamb Edwin Milton Royle.
It is unclear where he worked in the 1930s. Gardner Soper was a member of The Players and Salmagundi Club.
A death by suicide, his body was found in the harbor at Baltimore, Maryland, on June 13, 1939. He was 61 years old. When his pockets were searched, a nickel was found.