In 1979, I received a commission to do three marine paintings for Matson Navigation Company for an expensive centennial brochure. In the brochure four illustrators had been commissioned to do two illustrations each. Carl Evers was the first selected, and he was to do the lead off paintings. His first, shown here, was a modern container ship, the ‘Kauai’, entering Hawaiian waters.
It contained on board dozens of containers each with a small Matson logo that had to be included. Evers was 82 at the time and complained that his hand cramped up badly, and he requested someone else to do the second illustration. I was the illustrator selected, and the subject turned out to be the “Emma Claudina”, Matson’s first sailing ship in 1882. It was a challenging and historic first assignment.
Carl Evers was born in 1898 in Germany, his British father a marine engineer, and his mother an artist. He had early training at Slade School of Fine Arts in London, then later spent several years studying in Sweden before coming to the US in 1947 following the war. His accurate and beautiful work caught on immediately in New York, with advertisers and with commissions from other clients.
These scans, from a soft cover book, “The Marine Paintings of Carl G. Evers”, a Peacock Press/Bantam book* published in 1975, demonstrate his amazing skills at portraying the sea. The reproductions of the paintings and illustrations are beautiful and are too outstanding to not be shared with young digital viewers that haven’t had the opportunity to see some of Evers work.
First, one of my favorite paintings displaying Evers’ skills at dramatizing and rendering the ocean is this painting of a Navy oiler in WWII, the 'U.S.S. Kennedec' in rough seas.
Then as a contrast the next example is titled “Caribean Surf”. I will run out of superlatives early trying to describe these paintings, but this example is a “tour de force” gouache painting of a rough surf.
Compare these to this early clip from my Evers file. It's beautiful work…
... but not revealing at the time (to me) the amazing scope and talents of Carl Evers.
* My many thanks and credits are offered to the Peacock Press publishers for the opportunity to show some examples of this amazing body of work. - Chas. Allen
Continued later today...
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