Mid-century Romance and Misadventure

Bernard D’Andrea, Saturday Evening Post, November 1957.

Romantic fiction was a staple offer in the pages of Saturday Evening Post and a legion of highly proficient illustrators were on hand to give visual form to tragic and comic stories of love and betrayal. Some of the visual interpretations reveal a psychological complexity in a single image, every bit as effectively as a narrative spread over 8 or 10 pages of text.  These illustrators were masters of gesture and expression, expert in capturing minute variations in body language to convey emotional subtleties.  This was an age in which prosperity and anxiety seemed to advance in step - the Cold War undermined the sense of national security along with a growing unease that over-consumption and the breakdown in community values as millions moved to the suburbs was corroding the American soul.  The fear of crime couldn’t be washed away by alcohol and barbiturates.  Communism was an ever present, if ill-defined threat to the American way of life and efforts to eradicate its influence fed the climate of political paranoia.  Casual violence toward women and children was broadly condoned while adultery and coercive sex were only condemned if they came to public attention.  Maintaining an appearance of moral rectitude was imperative - any fall from grace would be ruthlessly punished by community pressure as much as legal proceedings. Women were often unwelcome and underpaid in the workplace and protection from harassment and exploitation was minimal. All these threads could be found in popular fiction and may explain why so many of these images contain unsettling and ambiguous gestures, glances and facial tensions. Carefree relationships and romantic bliss are in short supply.  Surrender to passion is more common, perhaps because it paves the way to the high drama of disillusion, treachery, desertion and cruelty.  This selection of images are mostly from Saturday Evening Post - artists are identified and dates of publication supplied where known.  Some examples are better than others. The subjects all include a couple - among them are several examples of what illustrators referred to as “the clinch” plus a few from other fiction genres such as crime and adventure.

Unknown illustrator, Saturday Evening Post.

Alex Ross in Ladies Home Journal, December 1948.

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

Joe Bowler, Saturday Evening Post, date unknown.

An expedition to a lingerie store illustrated by Joe De Mers for Saturday Evening Post.

Jon Whitcomb for the readers of Ladies Home Journal, July 1948.

Coby Whitmore for Saturday Evening Post, date unknown.

Saturday Evening Post, date unknown.

A frantic couple under siege - illustrated by Bernard D’Andrea, Saturday Evening Post, "The Hounds Of Youth" (1961).

Thornton Utz illustration for Saturday Evening Post.

Saturday Evening Post, illustrated by Edwin Georgi (1896-1964).

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

James Bingham, Saturday Evening Post, December 1955.

Alex Ross in Ladies Home Journal, October 1948. 

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

Coby Whitmore for Saturday Evening Post, date unknown.

Peter Stevens (1920-2001) for Saturday Evening Post, September 29, 1956.

Steamy mid-century romance illustrated by Jon Whitcomb for Ladies Home Journal, September 1948.

Coby Whitmore for Saturday Evening Post, 1953.

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

Lionel Gilbert (1912-2005) for Collier’s Magazine, January 1952. 

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

Peter Stevens (1920-2001) for Saturday Evening Post, date unknown.

Saturday Evening Post, illustrator and date unknown.

 

Mid-century American Illustration – a selection of double pages

To start 2018 we present some double page spreads from US magazines, mostly Saturday Evening Post with a few from Ladies Home Journal. In some we see the illustrator doing no more than take advantage of a broader space to add impact but in the best the illustrator has found fresh and innovative ways to integrate image and text to dynamic effect. The very best are those where the artist has exploited facial close-ups, dramatic lighting and tonal modelling to spring the image off the page and into our eyes – Jon Whitcomb and Alex Ross being masters of this technique. Artists include George Hughes, Melbourne Brindle, Robert Patterson, Halleck Finley, Peter Stevens and Walter Baumhofer. Baumhofer’s contribution (This time it’s Goodbye) artfully frames the text extract while maintaining a powerful spatial tension between the foreground figure and the distant couple she observes from behind the curtain.

Child Soldiers of Madison Avenue

Today we expose another cross-section through the geological record of mid-century American advertising and consider the impact of child centred publicity. Few images are as potent in emotional appeal as that of the child and for advertisers it is one of the basic elements in the visual vocabulary. A well-chosen image can help to convince the public that they are buying from an essentially honest and benevolent business when these qualities are reflected in the eyes of an innocent and guileless child. If the product contributes directly to the welfare of children (medicinal, infant foodstuffs, hygiene) the image must be modified to maximise parental anxieties and engage with protective instincts. When the product is primarily designed to meet the desires of children (breakfast cereal, confectionery) the chosen image will show the child transformed in terms of energy, alertness, health and contentment. A fortunate few graduate to the status of brand characters and enjoy long lives in a state of arrested development. Gender stereotyping is everywhere – boys are adventurous and naughty while girls are sensitive and helpful. The unimaginative advertiser is most likely to resort to cuteness of countenance to overcome consumer resistance – what monster could deny happiness and security to such an adorable and ingratiating child? Most of the following examples fit into one or other of these basic categories but a minority defy any classification and seem to have been conceived in a perfect storm of conflicting ideas. These are the ones that give the greatest pleasure to the detached observer of human folly.