THE S/lTUI(pjlY lEVENJ^G POST AEE ILLUSTEATOKS OBSOLETE? by STUART W. LITTLE grains of sand were little plastic cubes containing thumbnail-size pink baby n the last two decades the illustra­ dolls. The chilling point was this: The tor has watched a world of rapidly top half of the hour-glass, frozen in Ichanging perspective. The stock time, had fewer plastic babies than the images of the past—the white picket bottom half. fence, the trim, flower-bordered town To gauge what has happenend in square, the old swimming hole—have illustration, all within a working gen­ long since vanished with the covers of eration of painters, one should lay this the Saturday Evening Post, giving way image alongside the scrapbook Stevan to the kind of apocalyptic symbolism Dohanos keeps on a table in his hillside that took over the June exhibition at studio in Westport, Connecticut, con­ the Society of Illustrators in New York, taining the 125 covers he painted for The society's annual scholastic com­ the Saturday Evening Post in the Norman Rockwell cover, 1924. petition was loaded in favor of the gentler era of careful realism. Here, modern mood of environmental alarm. through the open doors of the white- family's ice cream cones on her way The contestants were asked to base painted Congregational church, is the back to the car. Here, in the very first their work on R. Buckminster Fuller's choir glimpsed at practice. Here, a Post cover Dohanos painted, in war­ statement, "We are all astronauts, for group of dejected neighborhood dogs time 1943, the park department carpen­ we live aboard a very little spaceship, watch the morning school bus depart. ter in overalls fixes a new name plaque illogically called 'earth'. ." Since Here, a Dalmatian with a litter of pups in place on the four-sided town honor illustration is no longer restricted to in the firehouse, in one of Dohanos's roll. Compare this treatment of death line drawings or paintings, one of the most famous covers, wistfully regards with the hourglass filled with plastic entries was a tall, three-dimensional the engine pulling out on a call. Here, babies. sculptured hourglass whose substitute a little girl warily clutches the whole Illustrators always have been con­ cerned with America's self-image— Frederic Remington with the rough- and-ready adventurism of the frontier, -f) Cosmopolitan, 1936 Charles Dana Gibson with the suave social elegance of the town, Norman Rockwell with our homey simplicity. The quarter century Dohanos worked as a Post cover artist, along with Rock­ well, John Falter, Mead Schaeffer, John Clymer, and George Hughes, was one of the great periods of American illus­ tration. Within their working lifetime the big change has come. At no other period in the history of illustration have styles changed so convulsively, leaving the old guard emotionally back in the town square, professionally not yet out of their prime, still productive —as Dohanos and so many of his col­ leagues are—but with no more Post adventure serials to illustrate and most of the covers lost to photography. One can shed a painted tear for what is gone. Color photography was the first great agent of change, and then tele­ vision. The magazines have always determined the fate of the illustrators. When the art directors were faced with a choice of using photography or art, the illustrator began to lose out. Walt Reed, historian of the illustrator, points out that when television came ANTHONY ADVERSE magazines ceased to be the primary aa h S. S. VAN DINE A Bradshaw Crandell pastel—"The cover was an editorial effort, standing by itself, making its point without benefit of text." 40 SR/JULY 10, 1971 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED ^,««,^„«,^.u.«,. POST -© J942 by The Curtis Piihtishing Co. -© 1944 by The Curtis Piihlishiug Co. Covers by Mead Schaeffer (left) and Stevan Dohanos—"One can shed a painted tear for what is gone." escapist vehicle. Money that went into time it would take a trained painter. Holiday, Alex Ross for Good House­ television was money withdrawn from Freeman says, the computer can ac­ keeping. Inevitably the Post was the magazines, and the market for illus­ curately trace the rotational somer­ No. 1 showcase. Readers used to wait tration shrank. Big buyers dropped by saults of a moving missile revolving expectantly each week to see what the the wayside—CoZ/fer's, Woman's Home on its horizontal axis and simultane­ Post cover would be. The Post rates Companion, and the Saturday Evening ously on its vertical axis, end over end. were not the highest, except for Rock­ Post, which in its final years already Stevan Dohanos remembers the dec­ well, who did his first Post cover in had abandoned its cover policy. Cos­ ade from 1940 to 1950 as being "the 1916. While Woman's Day was paying mopolitan, which almost went under boom, busy years" when all the "slicks" a flat fee of $1,500 per illustration, the until Helen Gurley Brown injected new were using illustration heavily, when Post was paying $1,000. For the sea­ (sex) life into the magazine, reduced the leading illustrators were known by soned professional, the Post cover its budget of fiction from ten pieces to all the magazine editors, and when would be worth from $2,000 to $3,000; one. Life has contracted considerably each magazine had almost a yearly for Rockwell, possibly $7,500. Today's from its former position as a major quota of work for its regulars, many rates in the big magazines are not real­ art consumer handing out assignments of whom were making probably $50,- ly improved much over the old. At Mc- such as its American Folklore series 000 a year or more. Coby Whitmore Call's and others, a single page will that could occupy an artist for as was specializing in smart women in bring about $800 and two pages up to much as one to four years, with fold- love and racing cars. Al Parker was the $2,500, depending on the amount of outs and covers and full-color pages. dean of the women's fiction school of work involved and the name of the New art directors have forsaken the illustration. Jon Whitcomb was manu­ artist. naturalistic manner. Wade Nichols, facturing beautiful faces in closeup. Dohanos's first big break on the Post editor of Good Housekeeping, for some Austin Briggs, one of the best drafts­ came when he was asked to illustrate years has observed the trend "toward men, was to do his famous campaign an eight-part serial by Nordhoff and less subjectivity in illustration, less of Madison Avenue types for TV Guide. Hall set in Tahiti. After 1943 he con­ realism, less dependence on the sit­ Joe DcMers was painting elegant com­ centrated on covers, submitting his uational treatment of a story." The positions highlighting the fashion-con­ ideas in the form of sketches and main­ younger art directors have brought on scious woman. Joseph Bowler was taining an acceptance ratio of one idea contemporaries schooled in new styles sketching young actresses making up in five. New England was the breeding and have ignored the older illustrators. in the bulb-lined dressing room mir­ ground for his covers, most of them The camera came into it more and ror. Tom Lovell was painting action from in and around Westporl. They de­ more. A consummate illustrator such scenes across a broad canvas. picted family life and community life as Fred Freeman, a pictorial historian One cover, however, would bring an with an authenticity of detail that of the U.S. Navy, kept ahead of pho­ artist more recognition than any num­ reached into the furthest corners of tography by going underwater and into ber of inside illustrations. The cover the canvas. For the precise pictorial space. Even there the computer has was an editorial effort, standing by it­ feel of that time one can confidently pre-empted the trained and experi­ self, making its point without benefit refer to the Dohanos scrapbook—even enced artist by making better draw­ of caption or accompanying text. Brad- for such esoteric facts as the varieties ings of missiles in orbit than human shaw Crandell was doing the covers of sweets that appeared in a pre-World hand can render. In a fraction of the for Cosmopolitan, George Giusti for War II candy store counter, the pins SR JULY 10. 1971 41 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED and buttons a small boy would collect, blocks, acrylics. It has dipped deeply murder scenes with waxen store dum­ and the insignia that would appear on into the sinuousness of art nouveau to mies in derby hats looking on. the printed souvenir scarf around his produce posters as in the work of Peter The acknowledged master of modern neck. Dohanos was careful to put them Max and turned advertising images in­ illustration is Milton Glaser, the most all in. His covers stand up, and a col­ side out to produce art as in the work versatile, the most innovative, and the lection of them, even at this short dis­ of Andy Warhol. most influential in the field. Glaser's tance of time, would have unique his­ Push Pin Studios, whose main show­ torical value. he new permissiveness has infil­ case is New York Magazine, has pro­ Like his paintings, his attractive T trated illustration. The restless­ duced some of the most original of the Westport studio, its huge north win­ ness and ingenuity found in the new modern illustrators, including his part­ dow looking out on delicate pines, is illustration derive from the fragmenta­ ner Seymour Chwast, with his papier- crammed with Americana, including a tion of modern art.