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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
