Treasures and Musings @ Modern Graphic History Library

Father's Day Gift Ideas from MGHL

Don't forget that this Sunday is Father's Day.  If you are still looking for a gift to give your dad, why not go with a tried and true, traditional gift: a necktie!

Al Parker fiction illustration for Girl With A Briefcase by Ruth Lyons for Good Housekeeping, September 1956.

Solid colors provide nice accents of color...

T.D. Skidmore fiction illustration  for A Diamond Setting by Octavus Roy Cohen from American Weekly, January 1932.

Diagonal stripes are also very classy...

Illustration of unidentified man by Robert Weaver, undated.

 Small polka-dotted patterns are also fashionable...

Illustration of unidentified man by Jack Unruh, undated. 

For those wanting more color, there's always multi-colored checkered...

llustration of unidentified man by Robert Andrew Parker, undated.

Just remember, the color and pattern of the tie should coordinate with the shirt and jacket.

Old Gold Cigarette advertisement by Robert O. Reid, Colliers, November 15, 1941.

Best of luck to you in your tie selecting.  Happy Father's Day!

Credits:

The T.D. Skidmore and Robert O. Reid illustrations are from the Charles Craver Collection.  The remaining images are from the Al Parker Collection, the Robert Andrew Parker Collection, the Jack Unruh Collection, and the Robert Weaver Collection.

Join MGHL on a Picnic

You are all invited to come on a picnic with Modern Graphic History Library.  We'd better hurry up and go, before it starts to rain again.

First, we will need proper hats. A Spring hat won't do, and a Summer Hat is too dressy. 

 

Article from Ladies Home Journal, July 1911.

A striped linen hat makes a smart-looking outing hat. 

Illustration from Ladies Home Journal, July 1911.

 

Perhaps a hat with a giant satin ribbon is more to your liking.

Illustration from Ladies Home Journal, July 1911.

As for food, no picnic can go wrong with Post Toasties. It's ready for immediate use by adding some milk and sugar.  There's no fear from contamination from dust because of its double-sealed package.  Plus, its convenience saves the bother of having to plan the meal.

Advertisement from Ladies Home Journal, July 1913.

We will need a way to transport the milk for the cereal.  For $1.95, we can purchase a Universal multi-cup vacuum quart bottle.  A Universal is "the best friend a picnic ever had."  It promises to keep our liquids cold for 72 hours, but we should be finished eating before then.

Advertisement from Delineator, July 1929.

Now that the food is ready, we need a way to get to our picnic location.  Luckily, we've got Pontiac Six, which only cost $745.  The efficiency of the car makes it low-cost so we can use it often for drives to the countryside for our picnics.  Don't forget to bring a book to read, or some swimgear for fun in the water afterwards.

Advertisement from McCalls, June 1930.

Hopefully we won't encounter any ants...

Illustration by Robert Andrew Parker, date unknown.

Otherwise someone could end up in tears...

Fiction illustration by Al Parker, for Baird Hall's Blaze of Glory, Ladies Home Journal, September 1936.

If that does end up happening, feel free to just go on and finish eating.

 

Credits:

Robert Andrew Parker's ant is from the Robert Andrew Parker Collection, and Al Parker's fiction illustration is from the Charles Craver Collection.  The advertisements and magazine articles are from the Periodicals Collection. Please check out the linked finding aids for more information about these collections.

Go to the Circus With Robert Andrew Parker

Robert Andrew Parker turns 86 today!  To celebrate his birthday, Modern Graphic History Library is going to the circus.

 

  Circus of the Wolves, p. 8.

Many of Parker's circus-themed illustrations can be found in the 1994 children's book, Circus of the Wolves by Jack Bushnell.  Parker's illustrations bring to life the story of a timber wolf named Kael.  After falling into a pit, Kael is discovered by circus workers, who capture the wolf and add him to their pack of performing wolves.

 

  Circus of the Wolves, p. 18.

Kael learns how to perform tricks and entertain the crowds while traveling with the circus for a year.  He then discovers a way he can return to the wild, and must decide if he really wants to leave this new life and the trainer he has grown to trust.

  Circus of the Wolves, p. 13.

In addition to the book illustrations, Parker has created other circus-themed works. 

You can't have a circus without clowns ...

 

  Girl with clown, date unknown

Or a flying trapeze ...

  Trapeze artists on postcard, February 1949.

To learn more about Robert Andrew Parker and the Robert Andrew Parker collection, check out our Finding Aid.  Circus of the Wolves is available to read in Modern Graphic History Library's reference section.

Happy Birthday Robert!

Four Views: Trees

In celebration of National Arbor Day this week, Modern Graphic History Library presents four different ways that illustrators have used trees in their work. In each of these examples, the artists have used the trunk and branches of the tree to frame their subjects and draw the viewer's eye to the actions of the people in the scene.

This R. John Holmgren illustration accompanied a story that ran in the October 1938 edition of Collier's.  Holmgren's work appeared in Collier's as well as Life and Judge magazines.  He was known for his colorful illustrations, which often featured shapely young women.

This black & white illustration is by Mario Ruben Cooper. It was featured in a story that ran in the September 1936 edition of Collier's.  In addition to being featured in Collier's, his illustrations also appeared in Cosmopolitan and Woman's Home Companion.

This advertisment for Jantzen Sun Clothes was drawn by Pete Hawley, who was well-known for his drawings of attractive young women. Hawley began illustrating for Jantzen in 1943.  This advertisement was featured in the July 1947 issue of Seventeen.

This Robert Andrew Parker illustration was created for the 1993 children's book, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky: the Iroquois Story of Creation, retold by John Bierhorst. Parker illustrated over 40 children's books in his lifetime.

Modern Graphic History Library has The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, plus many other Parker-illustrated children's books in its Reference section. For more infomation about Robert Andrew Parker and his collection, check out the finding aid. The Cooper, Hawley, and Holmgren illustrations are part of the Charles Craver Collection of tearsheets. 

Thrill Seekers Exhibit Now Available Online

Remember that exhibit we mentioned a few weeks ago? Well, in case you aren't able to visit Olin Library, you can now view Thrill Seekers: The Rise of Men's Magazines online.

Like the in-person exhibit, the digital companion features the original artwork, tear sheets, and whole issues of mid-century magazines like Esquire, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune, as well as lesser-known pulp fiction titles and girlie magazines. The exhibit draws on several of MGHL's collections and includes items like Robert Andrew Parker's illustrations for Vladimir Nabokov's fiction, Al Parker's take on the Monaco Grand Prix, 1930's ads from Esquire, Robert Weaver's illustrations for James Bond stories, and Ernest Trova's version of the Playboy bunny. The digital exhibit contains over 60 images -- some of which we weren't able to include in the in-person exhibit -- as well as a few additional features like recommending reading and relevant digital resources.

Below is one of our favorites -- an original Robert Andrew Parker watercolor for a Nabokov story that appeared in a 1965 issue of Playboy. To see more, check out Thrill Seekers online.

MGHL's Exhibit Thrill Seekers at Olin Library

MGHL's exhibit Thrill Seekers: The Rise of Men's Magazines opens today at Washington University's Olin Library. The exhibit charts the growth of men's magazines from the 1940s to the 1960s, and highlights original artwork, tear sheets, and whole issues of Esquire, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune, as well as pulp fiction and girlie magazines. Artists featured include Al Parker, Robert Weaver, Ernest Trova, and Robert Andrew Parker, among others. The exhibit will be on display in the Ginkgo Reading Room and Grand Staircase Lobby until January 4, 2013. A digital version of the exhibit is forthcoming, but in the meantime, you can check out a few highlights below.

This Stetson hat advertisement, illustrated by Edwin Georgi, appeared in the June 1939 issue of Esquire

1950 issue of the pulp magazine Adventure

1966 issue of Debonair

 August 1957 cover of Fortune by Robert Andrew Parker

This article, illustrated by Robert Weaver, appeared in the April 1959 issue of Esquire

The December 1979 issue of Playboy featured this three-panel "Do It Yourself" insert by Ernest Trova

Race, Ethnicity, & Identity at the Modern Graphic History Library

We've created a new research guide for anyone interested in researching race and ethnicity in the Modern Graphic History Library's collections. It provides an overview of what kind of materials and images we have and how to find them, relevant digital image collections, and recommended books. The guide draws from four different collections and highlights relevant original artwork, magazines, tear sheets, children's books, comic books, graphic novels, and zines.

A few images, along with more information about the collections represented in the guide, are included below. Check out the Race, Ethnicity, and Identity at MGHL research guide to see more, and don't forget to take a look at our recent guides about Advertisements and Women in Popular Culture if you haven't already.

Illustration from the Robert Weaver Collection. Weaver was dedicated to capturing the changing social and cultural climate of his times, and this collection is particularly strong in mid-century depictions of African Americans.

Illustration from A Great Miracle Happened There: A Chanukah Story, part of the Robert Andrew Parker Collection. Parker has illustrated over 40 children's books, several of which deal with race and ethnicity. The collection contains original artwork as well as published books.

The above comic is part of the Center for the Humanities Comics Collection which is comprised of thousands of comic books, predominantly published between 1960 and 2000. The collection contains a particularly strong selection of titles featuring African American super heroes and protagonists. This collection also includes graphic novels, magazines, and zines dealing with race and ethnicity.

Illustration by Stevan Dohanos, from the Charles Craver Collection. This collection contains hundreds of tear sheets of illustrated fiction, nonfiction, and advertisements from the 1930s to the 1950s by dozens of important mid-century illustrators. A list of illustrators relevant to researchers of race and ethnicity is available on the Craver page of the research guide.

Happy Birthday, Robert Andrew Parker!

Happy birthday to Robert Andrew Parker, who turns 85 today. Since the 1950's, Parker's work has appeared in numerous books, magazines such as The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, and museums and fine art galleries across the country. Many of his original watercolor illustrations for children's books can be found in the Robert Andrew Parker Collection; check out a few highlights below.

from The Ballet of Elephants, written by Leda Schubert (2006)

from The People with Five Fingers: A Native Californian Creation Tale, written by John Bierhorst (2000)

  from Father Time and the Day Boxes, written by George Ella Lyon (1985)

  from The Mermaid and the Whale, written by Georgess McHargue (1973)

  from To Fly: The Story of the Wright Brothers, written by Wendie Old (2002)

Four Views of Music

Because it's been a little while since the last Four Views post, we thought it was time to do another. While "music" may seem a difficult thing to represent, our collections are so full of images related to the subject that it was difficult to only choose four. A few favorites are below.

Illustration by Robert Andrew Parker.  Parker also wrote and illustrated the book Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum, a children's book about the eponymous jazz musician. Both the book and the original artwork for it are in the collection.

Illustration by Cliff Condak, quite possibly for an album cover. During the 1960s and 1970s, Condak illustrated many album covers for people like George Gershwin, Glenn Gould, and Billie Holiday; original artwork and reproductions are available in the collection.

Jack Unruh's illustration of Lyle Lovett. More illustrations of musicians and other well-known figures can be found in the Jack Unruh Collection; you can also see his illustration of Bob Dylan in this blog post about new images in LUNA.

An illustration for a January 1945 issue of Ladies' Home Journal by Al Parker. (You can see the photograph on which this illustration is based in the digital exhibit Double Exposure.) Parker was a lifelong music lover, and after high school played drums with a jazz band on his grandfather's riverboat.

Four Views of Winter

One of the benefits of the MGHL having such a diverse collection is seeing the different ways  illustrators portray a particular subject. With that in mind, today we're highlighting a few winter scenes by Robert Andrew Parker, Al Parker, Jack Unruh, and Robert Weaver. Links to the finding aids are below.

An illustration from the children's book Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum, written and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker

A greeting card illustrated by Jack Unruh

Magazine illustration by Robert Weaver

February 1938 cover of The Country Home by Al Parker