Vernon Grant: Cartoonist-Illustrator of the 1930s and 40s

Vernon Simeon Plemion Grant (1902-1990), or simply Vernon Grant, as he signed his works, had a long, active career illustrating magazines, books and advertising. Here is his Wikipedia entry and here is a website dedicated to him.

Grant featured a cartoon-like style in his work that was lively and attractive. It was also highly in tune with the times. Yes, there was a Depression and then a war going on during his peak years. But many Americans were happy to seek relief from unpleasant times by viewing escapist movies and gentle cartoon humor, so Grant did well in difficult times.

As for me, I have no problem with his artistic style, given his objectives and assignments. My problem is, ... well, let's take a look.

Gallery

Judge magazine cover - 19 March 1932
Grant had a sense of humor that must have appealed to some magazine editors and readers, but it largely eludes me. For most of the images in this post including this one, I can think of possible situational jokes; however, none is smashingly obvious.

Judge magazine cover - December 1935

Rice Krispies breakfast cereal characters - c. 1939
Snap, Crackle and Pop grew out of Grant's frequent usage of gnomes in his other illustration work, as in the Judge cover above.

Collier's magazine cover - 21 September 1940
The cowgirl is carrying a tennis racket and shoes. I have no definite notion what that signifies here.

Collier's magazine cover - 4 October 1941
Okay, I think I get the humor here. It contrasts traditional, dress-up type dancing with the Jitterbug dancing whose popularity was peaking around the time Grant painted this cover. His twist, of course, is cross-pairing the dancing couples -- perhaps parents and teen-age children.

Collier's magazine cover - 10 January 1942
The illustration was surely completed before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. It shows a sailor returning from duty in a warm climate. Not exactly war-related, but Collier's editors must have decided that the cover wasn't worth pulling at the last minute, production times being what they were.

Collier's magazine cover - 19 December 1942
Another sailor, another somewhat opaque joke. For once, it's the girl who has to wait for the date. But why is the sailor sleeping? It would be better if Grant provided a reason.

Collier's magazine cover - 5 August 1944
Grant often used sailors in his wartime illustrations. Here he deigns to feature a couple of Army corporals. But the humor? Are they writing each other? Someone else? Who besides Grant and his editor knows.

Collier's magazine cover - 9 June 1945
I have no clear idea who the head in the crystal ball might be.

Grant in his Rock Hill, South Carolina studio

Some Liberty Magazine Covers

According to its Wikipedia entry, Liberty magazine in its original form was published 1924-1950, apparently under three ownerships.

Despite what Wikipedia claims, Liberty was seldom (never?) a serious rival to the Saturday Evening Post in the realm of American general-interest magazines. That is indirectly indicated by the fact that Liberty's cover artists, while entirely competent, were seldom in the absolute front rank of their day. Below are some Liberty covers in chronological order.

Gallery

By Ruth Eastman - 7 February 1925

By Walter Beach Humphrey - 14 March 1925
The title of this cover is "Back from Palm Beach" (tee hee, that's a pun, folks).

By Leslie Thrasher - 2 March 1929
Havana was a popular place to visit in winter for affluent Americans.  Cuba Libre is also an alcoholic drink.

By Georgia Warren - 19 November 1932
I didn't find any useful biographical information on Warren, who was active in the 1930s.  This illustration is surprisingly era-free; it almost could have been painted yesterday.  That might have been because 1932 was during a transition from short to longer hair styles for women.  Another factor is that the clothing is hardly shown, so can't be pinned to a fashion era.

By Lumen Winter - 7 September 1935
There was a Lumen Winter who was best known (according to Wikipedia) as a muralist.  His signature was different than that on this cover.  But it's likely that we're dealing with the same Lumen Winter.

By unknown illustrator - 31 October 1936
Snazzy Hallowe'en witch we have here.  I wonder who the illustrator was.

By Walter Baumhofer - 4 April 1936
Here Baumhofer was beginning his transition from "pulp" to "slick" magazines.

By Scott Evans - 21 November 1936
Zippy car, attractive gal.  Unfortunately, I have no information about Scott Evans, a common name.

By Herbert Paus - 15 April 1944
I suppose Paus set this scene in a war-damaged Italian church, because Italy was where American troops were in action a few months before the D-Day invasion of France.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart: Society Painter

Julius LeBlanc Stewart (1855-1919) was born to wealth, which made the artistic life easier than most others found it. Wealth also provided social connections leading to the subject matter for many of his paintings. He was whisked off to Paris with his family at about age 10, and spent the rest of his life in Europe, as best I can tell.

A big problem for me is that I can find little regarding Stewart on the Internet or in my library of art-related books. His skimpy Wikipedia entry seems to have the most information.

Stewart can perhaps best be compared artistically to James Tissot, who also favored high society scenes for much of his career. Tissot was born 19 years earlier, but both died in their mid-60s. As best I can tell from small, Web-based images, Stewart's paintings seem more pleasing than those by Tissot, which generally have a brittle, hard-edged character.

Gallery

After the Ball - 1877

Lady on a Pink Divan - 1877
Stewart was just getting started when these two images were painted. He seems to have used the same model and costume for both.

The Letter - 1882
Women reading or reacting to letters was a popular late-19th century subject for many artists.

A Hunt Ball - 1885
One of Stewart's better-known paintings.

On the Yacht "Namouna," Venice - 1890
The yacht was owned by James Gordon Bennett. And that's Lillie Langtry towards the right.

Rédemption - 1895

A Supper Party - 1903

Rio della Maddalena - 1908
Stewart made cityscapes in the Venice area over the years.

Un nu sur la pelouse
He painted quite a few scenes of nude nymphs in grassy and woodsy settings.

Amoeba Patterns, 1950s

I use the word "amoeba" in the title, but for commercial usage by the company making Formica products, the names "Skylark" and "Boomerang" were used to describe a type of decorative pattern. Some background can be found here and here.

For some reason, blobs with bent shapes were considered the height of modernity in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. One possibility is that Surrealist paintings of the 1930s served as inspiration. Other possibilities exist, and I'm not yet prepared to research the origin of their use.

What we do have is yet another example of fashion, a collective set of appearance preferences that can fairly easily be associated with a given period of time. This is true for clothing, architecture, furniture, illustration and fine-art painting. Which is why it is often easy to identify something as being "very 1920s" or whatever. And why current preferences are doomed to become quaint artifacts of past times.

Below are images related to the circa-1950 amoeba fashion that I gathered here and there on the Internet. Any copyrighted material is duly acknowledged.

Gallery

Interior of travel trailer - 1955
A publicity photo. The surface of the counter top is probably in Formica or a similar product, but not in a Boomerang pattern.

Advertisement for Formica
This is probably from the early-to-mid 1950s; the Boomerang name wasn't introduced until mid-decade, though there was overlap in name usage, as is indicated in the image below.

Some Formica patterns

Boomerang-type patterns

Formica-topped kitchen table - 1950s
The top surface has a Boomerang pattern or something pretty similar.

Container Corporation of America advertisement - 1949
The artist is Ben Cunningham of Nevada. Note especially the ochre blob at the bottom.

Interior - 1950s
The coffee table has a rounded-off, non-rectangular top shape. Typical of 1950s furniture design are the thin legs of chairs, tables, and such. The idea was to achieve the appearance of lightness -- a reaction to heavy furniture of Victorian times and ensuing decades.

Tom Roberts: Versatile, With a Nice Touch

Thomas William (Tom) Roberts (1856-1931) was born in England and migrated to Australia in his early teens. Thereafter, he spent time in both countries. His initial art training was informal, but in 1881-84 he studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London. This information and more can be found in his Wikipedia entry. Charley Parker recently dealt with Roberts here.

Roberts painted landscapes, genre scenes and portraits with a nice, clean touch most of the time. To me, the archetypical Roberts painting combines fairly thinly painted backgrounds and more heavily painted subjects with areas done using a broad, flat brush. It seems that around 1910 he began using a more simplified palette. Unfortunately, I can't readily locate many of examples of this new direction. In any case, I find Roberts' body of work from the late 1880s and through the 1890s quite satisfying.

Gallery

A Spanish Beauty - 1883-84
Painted during his student days.

Bourke Street, West - c. 1885-86

Coming South - 1886
Sailing to Australia.

Slumbering Sea, Mentone - 1887

An Autumn Morning, Milson's Point, Sydney - 1888

Eileen - 1892

study of Lena Brach - 1893
This is the largest image I could find. I include it for readers interested in how artists work up paintings.

Grey Lady

Miss Isobel McDonald - 1895

Miss Florence Greaves - 1898

Alfred Howitt - 1900
Yes, Roberts also portrayed men.

Madame Hartl - 1909-10
This was painted when Roberts was simplifying his palette.

Hillside - 1927
The latest Roberts painting I turned up during a none-too-rigorous search.

Albert Dorne: Crowd-Scene Illustrator

Albert Dorne (1906-1965) was an important and very busy man during the final flowering of traditional illustration in America. His brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link with many examples of his work is here. David Apatoff, who wrote an illustrated biography of Dorne, blogged about him here and here. Leif Peng's take on the book is here.

In brief, Dorne started life at the bottom, further burdened by ill health. Nevertheless, he was driven to succeed, a task made easier by his ability to draw.

Dorne had the capability to be versatile, and was so at times when that was called for. Still, it seems to me that what he really liked to illustrate were scenes featuring crowds of people or, failing that, a detailed setting. To accomplish this, he made many preliminary studies, the final one being as detailed as the finished illustration but usually lacking color. He was hugely productive in terms of completed assignments, yet found the time and energy to do all this preparatory work. I find it astonishing that he could manage that while being involved with other projects such as the Famous Artists School.

Another characteristic of Dorne's illustration is his tendency to exaggerate body poses and gestures, something in the spirit of Thomas Hart Benton. I will deal with another of his stylistic traits below in the Gallery section.

For a reason I can't define, I'm not generally fond of Dorne's illustrations even though I greatly respect his talent and productivity.

Gallery

Fight scene
Big crowd here.  Note the V composition motif that helps holds the image together.

Bedside scene
Now for some exaggerated poses in the form of craning necks.

Wurlitzer juke box advertisement art
The crowd lurks around the edges here.

Maxwell House Coffee advertisement
Lots of detail plus a crowd of kids in the dining room.

Preliminary drawing, crowd scene

Preliminary drawing
Observe that the gentlemen at the left and right have very short legs.  Ideally, a person's crotch is about one half of a person's height, though of course people deviate from this measure.  For some reason, Dorne's casts of characters have legs that almost always range from normal (as just defined) to shorter than that.  Sometimes, a lot shorter, as seen here.

Paperback book cover art
The shorter corporals (why so many corporals? was that in the book?) have short legs, which is how things tend to be in reality.

Detail from Saturday Evening Post story illustration
Perhaps for reasons of composition, Dorne drew a number of people here with noticeably short legs.  Examples include the woman in the red skirt, the policeman, and the soldier towards the left side of the image.