Monday, August 15, 2022

Pierce-Arrow Automobile Advertisements

Pierce-Arrow automobiles (1901-1938, Wikipedia entry here) were very expensive.  They also were well-engineered and built using top-quality craftsmanship.

What they were not was stylish.  Pierce-Arrows were conservatively shaped, seeming several model years behind the designs of competing brands such as Packard and Cadillac.

One thing Pierce-Arrow did well was advertise.  That was in the days before television, when carmakers spent much of their advertising budgets on advertisements appearing in magazines.  Pierce-Arrow's advertising people used quality illustrators for images.  An interesting quirk was that the cars were often placed in the background of stylish, upscale people, helping to create a prestige image for a prestige car brand.

You might want to get details on some of the artists featured below using Google, Bing, or some other Internet search engine.

Click on images to enlarge.

Gallery

1910 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Adolph Treidler
Treidler did many early ads, then in 1929 created images with the same theme as some of those early ones.  At that point, Pierce-Arrow was harking back to its pre- Great War heyday.

1910 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Gil Spear
Poster-style illustration using tempera or gouache.

1911 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Ludwig Hohlwein
Hohlwein was for many years one of Germany's top poster artists.

1911 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Lewis Fancher
Another poster-style illustration.

1919 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Simon Werner
I find the young lady more fetching than the car.

1926 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, artist unidentified
Can anyone identify who painted this?

1927 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, artist unidentified
This one, too.

1930 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Will Foster
An example of a Pierce-Arrow nostalgia advertisement.  Note the small image of the first ad art, also probably by Foster.

1931 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Myron Perley
I think the best-looking Pierce-Arrows were built around 1930.

1932 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Paul Gerding
Note the contra-jour coloring.  Very nice.

1934 Pierce-Arrow Advertisement, art by Floyd Davis
Moderne was in vogue in 1934.  Despite the Great Depression that was snuffing out Pierce-Arrow, upscale people are featured as usual.

2 comments:

Pico said...

Haddon Sundblom? Check this link: https://www.carstyling.ru/en/entry/Pierce_Arrow_Advertising_Campaign_1925_1926/images/15742/

seguin said...

Ah, the Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow. That's the one time your statement about the styling rings false. Funny they didn't even show it in the panel.