1943 Packard Precision-Built Power Advertisement

     This series of illustrations was produced for Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan during World War II.  

     Packard was a major competitor to other manufacturing giants such as General Motors and Ford.  Like GM, the company mass produced high-precision parts for the US Military during World War Two.    

    This advertisement includes no less than a dozen drawings that make up the commercial's composition.  

   

The Supercharger rotates at 25,00 RPMs!  Faster than the speed of sound!

1955 American Legion Cover: The Statue of Liberty

     A great advantage of working for an art conglomerate like the Charles E. Cooper Studio in mid-twentieth century New York City is that it can bring exposure, recognition, and prestige to an artist.  For decades, the CEC Studio attracted, developed and promoted an astounding number talented artists such as James Bama, Sheila Beckett, Bernie D'Andrea, Stevan Dohanos, George Hughes, Al Parker, Coby Whitmore, and Jon Whitcomb.  

Pages 2-3 of  "Facts & Figures About Charles E. Cooper, Inc."

     You'll find their commercial art throughout all of the most recognized magazines of America's past.  And on their covers.  Many of them are in the Illustrator Hall of Fame today.  They also represented brands that we consider today icons of American industry and commerce such as Ford, Cambell, General Electric and General Motors.  

     So it was quite a stroke of luck and fortune that Walter D. Richards came to work there starting in the late 1930s.  He was pulled into the studio in large part because of his friend and fellow artist Stevan Dohanos.   They had met in Cleveland and had studied together under the tutelage of the lithographer and print artist Rockwell Kent.  

   One productive relationship that stemmed from Walter's time at the CEC was with the American Legion Magazine.  Walter DuBois Richards illustrated no less than fifteen covers for the American Legion Magazine over the better part of a decade.  His first cover for this magazine (that I know of) is an animated scene of two men bowling, published in February of 1949.  His final cover was published in June of 1957.  Over the next three decades Wally would produce covers for Argosy Magazine, The Coronet, Men True Adventure, Male, Outdoor Life, Medical Times and more.  

     This particular blog post focuses on his August 1955 cover.  It is a scene of tourists on a ferry heading out to visit the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.   

The American Legion Magazine August 1955 edition.  Cover by Walter DuBois Richards.

   This is a particularly fun post because I've found some provenance for the August cover in the form of  field research photography.  It was buried and undeveloped in the mass of negatives Wally or Glenny had preserved over the decades. 

I highlighted areas of the photograph that Wally used in his cover for American Legion Magazine.

If you look carefully at these pictures you can find the subjects he used for the illustration.



You can find the complete roll Walter took in my Flickr account for this blog by clicking on any of the photographs or scans in this post. 

The Early Years In Black And White

     My grandfather shot thousands upon thousands of rolls of film throughout his life.  My father and I both spent countless hours, days even, saving what film we could find when we were moving my grandmother from their home in New Canaan years ago.  Precious few roles from the 30s, 40s, 50s have survived the test of time.  They are tightly wound up in small metallic canisters with barely legible scribbling on them.  They have titles like "Chuck - folks at Woodstock, NYC BLDGs, East River, Geissman and family, etc."  

They are dangerous and hard to handle so I've only looked at a handful of them.  They consist of mostly family scenes, but some are field research he conducted for his illustrations, and some may be of him and his fellow artist friends from inside his studio at home or the Charles E. Cooper Studio in New York.

     While these rolls have been developed into negatives, scanning them is no easy task.  The older roles have a layer of nitrate embedded into the exposed side of the film stock, which is fascinating to look at but extremely volatile: if ignited it will literally continue to burn even under water.  I don't have the funds to send them off to some specialty store, nor do I feel comfortable mailing such rare and intrinsically valuable material.

 
 
     Enter Benjamin Lipiecki.  He's a friend and coworker, a recent graduate from Emerson College who has a degree in Digital post-production.  He has a love for old cameras and old film, with quite an impressive collection of his own, and approaches his material possessions and projects with a keen eye, thorough and scientific.  He's got a respect for old film like the rolls I have inherited.  It's because of my grandpa, my father and Ben that we are finally, after all these years, getting to see this film come to life in a photograph format: high resolution scans on a computer screen.

     In this blog I will post some of the photographs Wally, Glennie and their friends have taken through the years.  To preserve their originality I've decided not to touch them up, such as remove scratches, improve contrast and exposure (yet).  I hope you enjoy them, they have already brought thrills galore.  I will upload every single photo I scan to this blog's corresponding Flickr account, so look for more pictures there if you are interested.

Thanks again to all who have read this blog! 2,600 views from around the world and counting!   

Collections and Exhibitions for Walter DuBois Richards

The following list of collections and exhibitions was compiled for Walter Richards's last significant exhibition in 1999.  I thought it would be useful for anyone doing a little research on Wally.  I plan on expanding on this list since it has changed somewhat over the years.

Collections:

Cleveland Museum of Art
Department of National Parks
William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum
Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum
New Britain Museum of American Art
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
U.S. Military Academy Museum, West Point
The Pentagon
Worcester Art Museum
Yale University Museum

Exhibitions:

Art Institute of Chicago
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
National Academy of Design
New York Historical Society
Ohio Printmakers, Cleveland
Pennsylvania Museum of Art
Philadelphia Print Club
Royal Society of Painters/Printmakers
Smithsonian Institution
The American Watercolor Society
The Society of Illustrators
The White House, Washington
Whitney Museum of American Art



Questions I want to answer:  Which works of WDR do these Museums have?
                                            Which WDR works were used in each exhibition?

The 1946 Directory of United States Illustrators

     This was a great discovery in a box of old books: a compact beat-up binder titled "Official Directory of American Advertising Artists and Illustrators 1946." 

   
     It is more than just a directory of advertising artists and illustrators from that year (or decade depending on how you want to look at it).  

     This booklet reveals a bundle of interesting tidbits of information about illustration art in general.  For example, a short study of its 'Types of Art Work' illuminates how a collection of specific disciplines and their sub-categories together defined the broad field of illustration art in the 1940s.

Walter D. Richards, Illustrator #617

     I gather this tasty glimpse into the business side of American illustration holds credence because of its three primary authors:  The Society of Illustrators, The Art Directors Club N.Y., and The Artists Guild.  That said, of the 104 'representatives' and 826 artists listed, the vast majority of the artists and art studios are in New York City and Chicago.  Three from San Francisco are listed and two from both Los Angeles and Cleveland.  Westport (CT), Dallas, Detroit, Brooklyn and Washington D.C. each had one listing.


     Hmmmm.  I've read that even by the 1940s a very large portion of all advertising in the United States (probably the world for that matter) was hand drawn.  You'd think there'd've been more than 104 entities representing at least one artist in the country.  Then again, when you see the list of companies a label like the Charles E. Cooper Studio held as clients, maybe 104 'representatives' is realistic.


     But enough of this boring rumination.  For the fun of it, I've typed out each category and sub-category that is found in the directory.  Eventually, I would like to include the number of corresponding artists in each discipline.  I think there is some fun in the statistics.  Better yet, there might be someone reading this who is actually qualified (not me) to have an opinion or observation about it.

  7 Types of Illustration and 132 Sub-Categories


Illustration: 96 sub-categories ____ artists (numbers to be added later)
     Abstracts:
     Accessories (men's shoes):
     Adventure: 
     Advertising: 
     Airbrush: 
     Americana: See Historical
     Airplanes (aviation):
     Animals:
     Animation:
     Architectural:
     Art:
     Automobiles:
     Birds-Eye: See Outdoors
     Black and White:
     Book:
     Calenders:
     Cartoons:
     Character:
     Children:
     Color:
     Commercial Art:
     Comprehensives:
     Composition:
     Continuities:
     Cosmetics:
     Covers:
     Crayon:
     Decorative:
     Diagrams:  See Technical
     Drybrush:
     Drawings:
     Editorial:
     Fantasy:
     Fashion:
     Fiction:
     Figures:
     Fine Arts: 
     Finished Art:
     Flowers:
     Furniture:
     General:
     Genre:
     Girls:
     Glamour:
     Gnomes:
     Heads:
     Historical:
     Housefurnishings:
     Human Interest:
     Humor:
     Imaginative:
     Illustration:
     Informative:
     Industrial:
     Interiors:
     Magazine:
     Marine:
     Mechanical:
     Medical:
     Merchandise:
     Military:
     Modern:
     Monochrome:
     Murals:
     Music Interpretation:
     Object:
     Oil:
     Oriental:
     Outdoors:
     Painting:
     Pastels:
     Pictorial:
     Portraits:
     Products:
     Realistic:
     Scratchboard:
     Sea Subjects:
     Serious:
     Shoes:
     Sketches:
     Sports:
     Spot:
     Still-Life:
     Story:
     Strips:
     Stylized:
     Surrealist:
     Symbolic:
     Technical:
     Teenage:
     Tempera:
     Textiles:
     Wash:
     Watercolor:
     Western Action:
     Woodcut:


Design: 21 sub-categories ____ Artists
     Book:
     Calligraphy:
     Cartographers:
     Coats-of-Arms:
     Decoration:
     Design:
     Engrossing:
     Graphic:
     Heraldry:
     Humorous:
     Industrial:
     Jewerly:
     Labels:
     Layout:
     Lettering:
     Letterheads:
     Maps: 
     Packaging:
     Trade-Mark:
     Symbolic:
     Typographical:


Posters & Displays: ____ Artists


Art Direction: ____ Artists
     Art Director:
     Catalog:
     Complete Advertisement:
     Consultant:
     Creative:
     Visualizer:


Retouching:  ____ Artists
     Color:
     Retouching:


General: ____ Artists
     Commercial Art, Presentation, Rendering:


Sculpture: ____ Artists
     Clay Modeling:
     Moulage:
     Paper Sculpture:
     Sculpture:


What percentage of the artists are in each category ____?
What percentage of the artists are in each sub-category ____?

1941 Cadillac Fleetwood Advertisement

     In an earlier post about a Cadillac fighter plane illustration I had played with the idea that Wally did a great deal of work for General Motors during World War II because of his experience doing illustrations for Cadillac in the late 1930s and early 1940s.  Here is one of those illustrations.

     While a specific date is no where to be found on this illustration, I would guess it is Cadillac's series 67/75 Fleetwood limousine.  It was introduced in 1941 as one of Cadillac's premiere luxury vehicles.  Here's the wikipedia take on this series.  

     What is also interesting about this illustration is that it is a color proving stock for Fortune Magazine, where it was published.  This scan below is the backside to the above illustration for Cadillac.  

     Someday, when I can find the time, I'd love to know more about what this proving stock really is, and what role did it play for Fortune Magazine.  Furthermore, why did my grandfather have this in his possession?

Daniel Boone Never Heard Of Logistics: the AAR in 1950

     Walter Richards made this illustration of Daniel Boone for the Association of American Railroads in 1950.

     The exact date for the publication is unknown.  On the following side of this illustration the date 1950 can be seen.

     My father found two of these illustration magazine clippings that either Wally or his wife had set aside as an illustration Wally had done.

     

     

1971 Conoco Oil Annual Report

     Walter DuBois Richards's illustrations can be found in pamphlets, brochures, programs, and in this case an Annual Report for the petroleum giant Continental Oil Company in 1971.

     Wally produced five wonderful watercolors for the 1971 report.

  
    Wally did a considerable amount of commercial art for Conoco over several decades.  It is possible that the marketing director at Conoco was familiar with Walter's work and may have asked him to do this series for the Annual Report.    

     When this annual report came out, Conoco was expanding rapidly into a global force with over $2.3 billion in assets.

     Conoco seems to be stressing they are an environmentally-conscience company, which I can neither confirm nor deny.  One thing is clear, these are beautiful watercolors by Walter D. Richards.

1947 Univis Lens: See what you're missing!

     This illustration by Wally appeared in Time Magazine on May 12, 1947.  At the time he was working for the Charles E. Cooper studio in New York City.    

                 

The Univis Lens Company was a manufacturer of Bifocal and Trifocal Lenses.  

Trifocals are advertised here to 'clear up that arm's-length zone of blur.'

Budweiser in 1952: The Beer Of Your Lifetime

     

      This illustration Walter DuBois Richards produced for Budweiser in 1952 celebrates 100 years of brewing history of that famous Anheuser-Busch lager beer. 

     

     The illustration is well-composed, depicting a rural 19th-century baseball game behind what appears to be a finely dressed lady tending to a beer keg.  I wonder what Budweiser from an oak barrel would taste like.

     It's not Walter Richards's first illustration for Budweiser, but certainly one of his more interesting ones, tying together two of our countries great traditions: baseball and beer.

     Wally often used photographs of models to help define the positions or composure of a body as well as for the expressions on their faces.   

     One of my challenges is to try to find any photographs or 'provenance' for illustrations like these.  A very difficult challenge, but a potentially gratifying one.

Winchester Batteries' Bullet-Fast Light 1944

     In 1944 Wally created this interesting alternative viewpoint of the moment Christopher Columbus first set eyes on the New World in October of 1492**.  The illustration is part of an advertisement for Winchester's unit cell batteries which were about to hit the US market.



     As the Winchester Ad explains, Columbus "saw dim, flickering lights in the West."  This illustration depicts what that flickering light may have been.  

   


     According to the write-up, the natives of the Americas possibly used Tabanuco tree wood resin as thier burning material for torches.   Now I know. 

   
     Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a division of Western Cartridge Company located in New Haven, Connecticut in 1944.  



**If you look closely, you may notice Walter's signature is nowhere to be found on this illustration.  Many of the illustrations I've uncovered were set aside by either my father or by the artist himself (my Grandpa) as illustrations he produced as commercial art.  In fact, I found hundreds of such clippings in one box marked 'Personal Illustrations'; this is one of them.

Bad Medicine For Big Bombers: An Illustration For Westinghouse Electric

     It's easy to gravitate to Walter DuBois Richards's World War II illustrations.  While his career spanned nearly seven decades, there is a certain excitement and awe connected to this four year period that draws in my attention.




     This action filled illustration by WDR gives us a good idea of just how intense a naval battle could get.   The above scene seems to depict the British Navy's QF 2 Pounder naval gun, also known as the 'pom pom.'   


     The Westinghouse Electric elevator company division was given the responsibility of producing gun mounts that controlled the aiming of anti-aircraft artillery guns or batteries found on many US Navy warships.  
    This illustration advertisement appeared in Collier's on May 2, 1942.  Like most American corporations during WWII like GE and GM, Westinghouse Electric devoted most of it's resources to giving the allies an edge over it's enemies, and wanted the home front to know it.