Paul George Lawler's Pan American Posters

Above is a well-known poster from around 1941.  The setting seems to be largely imaginary or exaggerated, but the airplane is correctly shown.   Pan American Airways was featuring its new Boeing 314 "Clipper" flying boat airliners.

A series of posters featuring Boeing 314s and, occasionally, other aircraft was commissioned by Pan Am in the years leading up to the USA's entry in World War 2.  The artist was Paul George Lawler.  My Internet search yielded essentially zero information regarding Lawler.  Nor did I find him listed in my illustration reference books.

This is somewhat surprising, because Lawler did nice work for Pan Am, and the airline almost surely did not want to trust such important publicity to someone without credentials.

Below are some examples of his Pan Am work.  A few images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

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This poster is an early one because it shows the poorly-drawn original Boeing 314.  It had a too-small single tail that, after some testing, finally was replaced by a triple tail.

The aircraft in this poster seems to be based on Pan Am's Martin M-130 flying boat, though its sponsons are not shown.

Pan Am began flying Boeing 314s to Europe in 1939, shortly before the war.  By this time, Lawler had access to more and better reference photos of the 314.

Another well-known (in Hawaii, anyway) poster.  The size of the 314 was greatly exaggerated.  Compare the size of the passengers by the aircraft to those in the photo below.

Some Trieste Heads

The Italian port city Trieste was under Hapsburg rule for more than 500 years ending in 1918 at the conclusion of the Great War.

The sculptures of human heads I noticed on many buildings in the city probably date from Austrian, rather than times of Italian rule.  I don't know the ethnicity of the sculptors or the buildings' architects, however.  Many such heads were placed atop entries of buildings.

I was in town in October 2021 and took the following photos of some of those heads.

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This 1930s Moderne style bas relief is in Trieste's cruise terminal area.

Robert Fawcett -- Discovering the Murder

Robert Fawcett (1903-1967) was partly colorblind.  Perhaps that was why his strengths as an illustrator were in composition and depiction of people and objects.  A brief biography is here.  I wrote about his early work here.

In the 1950s Fawcett illustrated many stories that appeared in major American general-interest magazines such as Saturday Evening Post and Collier's.  Quite a few of those were murder mystery stories.  Since those involved bodies, it made dramatic sense for Fawcett to show the body being discovered or perhaps examined by the detective.

Some examples are shown below.

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These first three illustrations depict participants unknown to me.

From a Sherlock Holmes story in Collier's Magazine.

Another Sherlock Holmes story in Collier's.

Hercule Poirot finds this body in another mid-1950s Collier's issue.

Ferrara's Palazzo dei Diamanti

Ferrara Italy's painting museum, the Palazzo dei Diamanti, was built as a residence during the years around 1500.  As such, it has no particular architectural style, the exerior being something of a decorated box.  But the exteror décor is what distinguishes it, because the surface is covered with four-sided triangular shapes that were called diamanti (diamonds).

The building's Wikipedia entry is here, and its Web site is here.

I briefly visited Ferrara in October and took some photos of it.  Unfortunately, the day was gloomy, as are most of the pictures.

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The corner facing the corsi Biaggio Rossetti and Ercole I d'Este -- the duke d'Este had the palazzo built as his home.

Ornamentation was placed at the corner.

Some details.

The Corso Biaggio Rossetti side.

Close-up view of the diamonds.

Corso Biaggio Rossetti entrance.

José Moreno Carbonero, Painter of History and Don Quixote

José Moreno Carbonero (1858-1942), Wikipedia entry here, was well known and respected in Spain during his career.  The Prado has some of his paintings in its collection.

He seems to be best known for his historical paintings, but Internet image searches turned up a number of works dealing with Don Quixote.  These subjects are featured below.

Moreno Carbonero's style varied somewhat according to subject matter.   The historical images have a near-Academic feeling, whereas his Quixote pictures have more of an illustration cast.  He also painted many portraits, but examples seen via the Internet varied considerably in technique.

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Entrada de Roger de Flor en Constantinopla - 1888
His major history scene.

Conversión del duque de Gandía - 1884
Another important work.

Prince Don Carlos of Viana - 1881

La fundación de Buenos Aires - 1910, reworked by 1924

El desembarco de Alhucemas - 1929
Spanish troops embarking for Morocco to end the Rif War.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza - 1911

Don Quixote and the Windmills

Don Quixote and the Broken Tooth

Don Quixote Halting the Caravan - 1911
Several Quixote scenes were panoramic, rather than up-close.

Santa Maria Della Salute seen from the Academia, Venice
He painted several Venice cityscapes.

King Alfonso XIII - 1927
Much more sketchy than usual.  It seems to be unsigned, so it originally was probably a study.

Dance with Tamborine on Beach
Some paintings are rather splotchy.

Amsterdam's Scheepvaarthuis Ornamentation

Scheepvaarthuis, Wikipedia entry here, at last report was a hotel.  Before that, as the name implies, it was built to house shipping companies.  According to the entry, it was built in two stages -- 1913-16 and 1926-28.

The architect was Joan van de Mey (1878-1949), and much exterior sculpting was by Hildo Krop (1884-1970).

The building is considered an outstanding example of the Dutch modernist architecture of its time.  I have been aware of it since college days, and back in 2013 while my wife was away viewing windmills I spent a day photographing Amsterdam sights, including Scheepvaarthuis.

Some of those photos are presented below.  Click on them to enlarge.

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Sagrada Familia Interior

Barcelona's most famous building is the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926).  Construction began in 1882 and will likely miss its 2026 completion target.  The Spanish Civil War and other delay events contributed to that timeline.

Today's post presents some photos of its interior I took early November 2021.  I was last there in the Fall of 2010 shortly before Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the building.  What I saw was a construction zone that shortly became the nearly completed interior.  As best I can tell, the interior is now essentially complete.

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View on entering from the eastern Nativity side.

Towards the Choir.

Looking down the Nave.

Towards the east entrance.

The ceiling.

Windows on the west side have a warm tint, whereas east side windows feature cooler blue and green.

The effect of sunlight through those windows.

Summary view of interior details.