Philip Gladstone was born in 1963 in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, within weeks of his father’s discharge from the United States Army. Philip’s younger brother and sister joined the family four and eight years later, respectively. His father began what was to be a long and successful career in the graphic arts at that time, and his mother stayed home to care for her growing family.
Both of his parents had grown up in Philadelphia and couldn’t wait to get out, so when an opportunity for employment arose in rural Maryland when Philip was less than two years old, his father happily seized upon it. Philip spent his elementary school years blissfully living in an old farmhouse in a village on the banks of the Choptank River, half an hour away from the nearest store of any kind, playing dangerously in the woods and cornfields. From there Philip moved with his family to Maine, then to Florida, and finally to Connecticut, where he continued to live for many years as an adult.
According to family legend, Philip’s first artwork was made when he pushed his hand into his soiled diaper and created a mural with the contents on the walls surrounding his crib. Later, when Philip had access to proper art supplies, his interest evolved to focus on cartooning, and as a teenager he aspired to be a professional cartoonist. While in high school he wrote stories for comic books that were accepted for publication, earning four hundred dollars apiece for his efforts, a staggering sum to him at the time. It wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his interest in drawing was expanding far beyond the limitations of the graphic simplicity of comic art, and by the time he was seventeen he had largely abandoned cartoons for painting.
Both of his parents had grown up in Philadelphia and couldn’t wait to get out, so when an opportunity for employment arose in rural Maryland when Philip was less than two years old, his father happily seized upon it. Philip spent his elementary school years blissfully living in an old farmhouse in a village on the banks of the Choptank River, half an hour away from the nearest store of any kind, playing dangerously in the woods and cornfields. From there Philip moved with his family to Maine, then to Florida, and finally to Connecticut, where he continued to live for many years as an adult.
According to family legend, Philip’s first artwork was made when he pushed his hand into his soiled diaper and created a mural with the contents on the walls surrounding his crib. Later, when Philip had access to proper art supplies, his interest evolved to focus on cartooning, and as a teenager he aspired to be a professional cartoonist. While in high school he wrote stories for comic books that were accepted for publication, earning four hundred dollars apiece for his efforts, a staggering sum to him at the time. It wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his interest in drawing was expanding far beyond the limitations of the graphic simplicity of comic art, and by the time he was seventeen he had largely abandoned cartoons for painting.
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