The Propaganda of Capitalism

Last week's series of American Legion magazine covers resulted in an interesting discussion in the comments section about Communism, Capitalism and the nature of propaganda. It got me thinking once again about how industry presented itself to the public through advertising during the mid-century. So I pulled out my stack of early 1950s Fortune magazines and found something very interesting. The cover of the February 1953 issue of Fortune describes...

Read More

The Great Al Hirschfeld

Toby Neighbors has put together another fantastic tribute to a mid-century illustrator - this time its the great Al Hirschfeld. Visit Toby's site, illostribute.com for an extensive biography of Hirschfeld, a nice selection of his art and, of course, a whole series of wonderful 'tribute' pieces by contemporary illustrators!All of today's images are © The Al Hirschfeld FoundationMore at illostribute....

Read More

A Little More Lucia

Another gift from Steve Scott - one I'm particularly thrilled about: a 1956 magazine cover by Lucia Lerner - wow!And a scan of the interior story art as well.Lucia is one of my absolute favourite mid-century illustrators. If you're a new reader and would like to learn about her career, I collected the installments originally presented here on Today's Inspiration and republished them as one long story here.Steve very kindly sent me scans from another...

Read More

American Legion Magazine, 1951

A couple of weeks ago my friend Steve Scott sent me an email:"I purchased a lot of old American Legion magazines, as one of them contained a John D MacDonald story I was looking for. I now own all twelve issues from 1951, plus a few more, and noticed several familiar names -- familiar to me now thanks to following Today's Inspiration. I thought I would send them along to you for your collection."What a great surprise! These covers are priceless....

Read More

Robert Fawcett and Manuel Auad on Doing Your Best Work

Excerpt from David Apatoff's text in the new Robert Fawcett book:As his work matured, Fawcett continued exploring new ways of making images. He was always willing to abandon conventional wisdom and experiment with new tools and techniques in his work. he told students, "There are no hard and fast rules. The more you look for them as crutches to support you, and the harder you try to produce something which 'looks professional' because it follows...

Read More

Robert Fawcett, Abstract Artist

Excerpt from David Apatoff's text in the new Robert Fawcett book:Despite Fawcett's lack of formal education, his house became a center of cultural activity. Fawcett had a strong interest in music and became friends with world famous musicians including Toscanini and Heifetz, who visited his home. He also kept company with a wide variety of artists, such as the famous English sculptor Jacob Eptsein, and embraced the latest modern art.Original drawings...

Read More