Christmas Traditions with the Saturday Evening Post
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Christmas Traditions with the Saturday Evening Post
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Overview
On America’s nightstands for nearly three hundred years, through the events and cultural shifts that have shaped our country’s character, the Saturday Evening Post continues to resonate as America’s magazine. Christmas Traditions with the Saturday Evening Post is the first in a series of coffee-table ebooks showcasing the timeless holiday imagery the Post is known for through its award-winning artists Norman Rockwell, Steven Dohanos, J. C. Leyendecker, John Falter, and more. Richly illustrated with iconic imagery and set to classic Christmas music, this special ebook is a nostalgic Americana experience celebrating the spirit, memories, and fun of Christmas over the years.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497667662 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SD Entertainment |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 140 |
| Sales rank: | 1,018,777 |
| File size: | 24 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
Read an Excerpt
Christmas Traditions
The Saturday Evening Post
By Caryn Drake, Norman Rockwell
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2013 Patti DavisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-6766-2
CHAPTER 1
February 1, 1931
Sleigh on Snowy Village Street
Walter Baum
Born on December 14, 1884 in the small village of Sellersville, approximately fifty miles north of Philadelphia, Baum grew up without electricity or automobiles. As industrial advances altered the appearance and economy of his region, Walter Baum worked to secure and strengthen its cultural identity.
Baum's first cover appeared on January 1931's Country Gentleman, a popular monthly agriculture magazine produced by Curtis Publishing. Baum adapted his standard horizontal compositions with ease to the vertical format required for the magazine. Almost all the large vertical paintings by Baum are from the thirties and were probably conceived as covers for Country Gentleman.
Through exhibition openings at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Baum met N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, whose illustrations enlivened the covers of the Saturday Evening Post for years. While their covers told a whole story in a single scene, Baum's covers were reproductions of his landscapes.
CHAPTER 2December 18, 1943
Christmas Ornaments
John Atherton
Born on December 14, 1884 in the small village of Sellersville, approximately fifty miles north of Philadelphia, Baum grew up without electricity or automobiles. As industrial advances altered the appearance and economy of his region, Walter Baum worked to secure and strengthen its cultural identity.
Baum's first cover appeared on January 1931's Country Gentleman, a popular monthly agriculture magazine produced by Curtis Publishing. Baum adapted his standard horizontal compositions with ease to the vertical format required for the magazine. Almost all the large vertical paintings by Baum are from the thirties and were probably conceived as covers for Country Gentleman.
Through exhibition openings at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Baum met N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, whose illustrations enlivened the covers of the Saturday Evening Post for years. While their covers told a whole story in a single scene, Baum's covers were reproductions of his landscapes.
CHAPTER 3February 10, 1917
Building Snowmen
Sarah Stilwell-Weber
Sarah S. Stilwell was born in Concordville, Pennsylvania in 1878. In 1897, Sarah became an art student at the acclaimed Drexel Institute in Philadelphia where she was under the instruction of another illustrative great, Mr. Howard Pyle.
Sarah did the majority of her cover art for The Saturday Evening Post from 1904 through 1921. Not one to work well under pressure, she resisted the offer by George Horace Lorimer to do regularly scheduled pieces. She preferred having the freedom to work at her own pace and submit items at her leisure, feeling that a deadline might compromise her need to work until she felt personally satisfied with the result. Sarah Stilwell-Weber's illustrations graced sixty covers of The Saturday Evening Post and five for The Country Gentleman. Her favorite subjects were of young children while at play, taking you back to a time of simple pleasures. Their youthful enthusiasm and all the movement that goes with their exploration are captured in the expressions on their delight filled faces.
CHAPTER 4December 11, 1954
Christmas Photograph
Amos Sewell
Amos Sewell was born in San Francisco, California. Sewell was a nationally-ranked tennis pro during his twenties but quit the sport after he suffered several degrading defeats at the hands of Donald Budge; Grand Slam winner of Wimbledon and the championships of Australia, France, and the United States—in 1938.
Sewell then moved to New York and started studying at the Art Students League and at the Grand Central School of Art under Harvey Dunn. While in New York in 1932 he married the former Ruth Allen and moved to Westport, Connecticut. Sewell had a special empathy for children and enjoyed depicting homespun, rural subjects, which served him well illustrating for The Saturday Evening Post and Country Gentleman magazines. Sewell continued a strong relationship with The Saturday Evening Post illustrating 45 covers between 1949 and 1962.
CHAPTER 5December 4, 1948
Tree In Town Square
by Stevan Dohanos
The idea for this scene came to Dohanos one winter while watching men from the city's parks department install a tree in the town square of his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Six months later—in the dead of summer—he began this work while vacationing in Martha's Vineyard. Setting up his easel in Edgartown, he painted the Bridgeport foreground from memory, but inserted the Edgartown town hall in the background. Passing tourists who glanced over his shoulder at his work must have done a double take to see the snowy scene taking shape.
CHAPTER 6December 22, 1951
Centering the Christmas Tree
by Stevan Dohanos
A few years ago we received an email from Betsy Norfleet with information about the creation of this iconic 1951 cover. Betsy told us that it was her mother, Betty, who portrays the housewife directing her harried real-life husband George. As the story goes, George was not only brutally scratched by the needles but also threw his back out posing in that scrunched-up position for hours on end. Betty and George Norfleet were from Westport, Connecticut.
CHAPTER 7December 24, 1949
Trimming the Tree
by George Hughes
In June 1949, artist George Hughes tramped into the Vermont woods, cut down this tree, and dragged it home and decorated it.
Although his children loved having Christmas in June, the artist had to work fast. Summer heat was causing the needles to drop and the tree was turning into a hat rack. To make matters worse, his 2- year-old daughter kept pulling off the ornaments. The resulting painting, however, is one we can all identify with.
CHAPTER 8December 16, 1950
Christmas at the Fire Station
Stevan Dohanos
The son of Hungarian immigrants, Stevan Dohanos was born in Lorian, Ohio. Although as a child he would take a stab at copying the many Rockwell pieces he admired, his real interest in art became noticed when he recreated calendar posters for the men at the steel mill where he worked. With coaxing from friends and family, he began to take his talent for art seriously and invested in a two-year home study course. When he had exhausted all of the course work available at this level, he went on the attend Cleveland Art School as a full-time student.
After graduation, he worked in Cleveland as a commercial artist. Although he appreciated having a steady job, he longed for artistic freedom in which to express his creative self. In the early 1940's finally worked up the courage to submit several pieces to The Saturday Evening Post, and was awarded his first cover on March 7, 1942, depicting a WWII search light team. Slowly but surely he gained a regular spot in the Post's artistic line up of talented stars. During the next fifteen years, his artwork was highlighted in over one hundred covers. He portrayed the everyday existence of the middle class working man and woman, but his version was exemplified in the scene rather than the individual characters. His view was likened to Edward Hopper in the sense that his perspective was more as the witness rather than the participant. Not interested in bringing the viewer to a conclusion, he simply wanted to document the scene as clearly as he could.
Stevan most assuredly personifies a true Horatio Alger success story. A dedicated artist with profound regard for the profession, his works reflect his consuming passion for the simple pleasures life offers at every turn.
CHAPTER 9December 29, 1951
More Snow?
George Hughes
George Hughes was born in 1907 in New York City. Like many other Post artists, he bypassed a formal college education and studied art and mechanical drawing for three years in New York's Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. Once out of school, he worked as a freelance fashion illustrator. His work often appeared in such bastions of high style as Vanity Fair and House and Garden magazine.
In New York, his career as a commercial artist would begin to take flight as he struggled to fine- tune his work. It was not until 1942 that he landed his first assignment with The Saturday Evening Post by illustrating a short piece of fiction. As he went from photographs to live models, the quality of his art reached a new plateau. Shortly thereafter, Ken Stuart, the Post's art director, began to consider Hughes as a potential cover artist. Hughes' first major artistic rendering was painted in the early fall of 1947 and showcased on the cover of thePost on April 17, 1948.
Hughes' Post covers were a great success with his public, each able to recall similar family scenes. His authentic blend of humor and truth caught the imagination of a generation that was in the process of redefining itself. Between the years of 1948 and 1962, Hughes would paint 115 Post covers, making him the most prolific artist during this period.
CHAPTER 10December 23, 1933
Stealing a Christmas Kiss
Joseph Christian Leyendecker
Joseph Christian Leyendecker, born in Montabaur, Germany, and came to America at the age of eight. Showing an early interest in painting, he got his first job at the age of sixteen in a Chicago engraving house on the strength of some large pictures he had painted on kitchen oilcloth. In the evenings after work, he studied under Vanderpoel at the Chicago Art Institute, and saved for five years to be able to go to France to attend the Academie Julian in Paris.
Upon his return, as a thoroughly trained artist with immense technical facility, Leyendecker had no difficulty in obtaining top commissions for advertising illustrations and cover designs for the leading publications.
CHAPTER 11December 21, 1929
Christmas Minstrels
J.C. Leyendecker
Leyendecker became a noted American illustrator and graphic designer who, between 1896 and 1950, painted more than four hundred magazine covers, most of them of an idealized America. His first Saturday Evening Post cover was done in 1899, and he executed over 300 more during the next 40 years. Among the most famous of these was his annual New Year Baby series.
He particularly hit his stride in the 1930's with fashion advertising, selling lifestyle with product. It is said that his technical skill was beyond reproach, he worked amazingly fast, and that his draftsmanship was perfect. He and his brother, Frank Xavier Leyendecker worked together in a large studio estate in New Rochelle, New York. J. C. Leyendecker, whom Norman Rockwell considered his primary mentor, heavily influenced Rockwell's early style and was a true master illustrator of the 20th century.
CHAPTER 12December 4, 1926
Santa at the Globe
Norman Rockwell
In 1916, 22-year-old Norman Rockwell published his first The Saturday Evening Post cover, a commission considered to be the pinnacle of achievement for an illustrator. During their very first meeting, George Horace Lorimer, editor of The Saturday Evening Post, agreed to use two finished paintings and approved three sketches for future use. This defining moment set the stage for a 47-year professional alliance that nurtured the creation of 400 of the world's most beloved art images.
Rockwell created his interpretation of this jolly holiday icon by retaining an old world Germanic feel. The globe stand painted in red with gold leaf, the ruffled blouse with cufflinks, Santa's black scull cap with a quill pen tucked behind one ear and the aged leather-bound book where the names of good boys and girls are recorded have universal familiarity. The circular ring of bells around one calf will surely herald his coming and the leather pouch stretched across his body will hold his directional notes for his sleigh ride. The red suit gives a larger than life impression while the slippers complete the image by projecting a warm, inviting feeling.
The viewer sees the enjoyment on Santa's face as he carefully inspects the globe, with his trusty magnifying glass, spying the location of yet another lucky child's house for his impending Christmas Eve arrival.
Rockwell places himself inside the mind of his small viewers, asking the important questions that seem to come up every year. "How does Santa get all of those toys delivered in one night?" and more importantly, "How does he know where I live?" Although the question is never really answered, the simple comfort of knowing that Santa is taking care of everything seems to be enough. Rockwell fosters the image of a world filled with abundance and cheer. Santa Claus leaves us with the impression that although he has his head in the clouds; his feet are firmly on the ground. All children will be rewarded for their good behavior by receiving something they have dreamed about all year long.
CHAPTER 13December 6, 1952
Department Store at Christmas
John Falter
Even 60 years ago, the ugly tie was a universally recognized as the least desirable Christmas gift one could receive. But sometimes, well, that's the best a person can do. For this hectic scene, Falter relied on his background working at his father's clothing store in Falls City, Nebraska.
CHAPTER 14December 6, 1958
Crying on Santa's Lap
George Hughes
Shortly after Rockwell moved to Vermont, Hughes and his wife followed, joining the colony of Post cover artist living there-Gene Pelham, Mead Schaeffer, and Jack Atherton, to name a few. You can see Rockwell's influence in this portrayal of a stressful first encounter with Santa.
CHAPTER 15December 26, 1936
Night Before Christmas
JC Lyendecker
Leyendecker had a unique and one-of-a-kind style, "modern," that included elements of both Art Nouveau and Art Deco, but couldn't be categorized as either. His technique was called "controlled spontaneity." He practiced his technique and brush strokes so he never had to re-do anything, each brush stroke had a purpose.
CHAPTER 16December 13, 1952
Bus Stop at Christmas
Stevan Dohanos
Waiting for a bus laden with purchases is a hard way to get gifts where they need to go! Dohanos' 1952 cover shows a crowd waiting, some rather impatiently, for that ride. Too bad we can't see the next scene, where the man jiggles the sled through the bus door, and the older lady surprises the bus driver by hauling a tree aboard. And ... is that a goose? Post writer Rufus Jarman, a neighbor of Dohanos, makes a cameo appearance here as the determined-looking fellow to the left of the Christmas tree.
CHAPTER 17December 19, 1959
All Wrapped Up in Christmas
Richard "Dick" Sargent
Richard Sargent's first cover for The Saturday Evening Post appeared in 1951 and culminated in the early sixties, having illustrated 47 popular covers. He used a framing technique in which he created a progressive story with the outcome left to the viewer's imagination.
Sargent's approach reminds us to keep our sense of humor intact in the face of trying situations. In allowing us to have a real look at ourselves from a cultural perspective, he hoped that a deeper understanding of our motivations would emerge.
CHAPTER 18February 1, 1926
Tobagganing
George Brehm
George Brehm was a native Hoosier who attended Indiana University for one year before beginning his career as an artist. His first real job was as a newspaper artist for the Indianapolis Star. While living in Indianapolis, Indiana he began illustrating for Reader magazine, published by Bobbs-Merill.
A move to New York to study at the Art Students League brought Brehm in contact with art directors from national magazines. Soon he was receiving commissions from Country Gentleman and The Saturday Evening Post. He would go on to paint a combined 15 covers for the Curtis Publishing Company.
CHAPTER 19December 16, 1939
Santa at the Map
Norman Rockwell
Rockwell's masterful illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post represented a simpler time in America's history, a time of good family values and honest, homespun virtues. Today, these images are visual touchstones that transport us to familiar places in the heart.
For nearly half a century, Rockwell's paintings mirrored the American experience. He painted this country and its people with unabashed frankness and poignancy, giving us a living chronicle of our dreams, our aspirations and ourselves.
The model for Santa mapping his Christmas Eve route in 1939 was Dan Walsh, a postman from New York.
CHAPTER 20December 10, 1955
Giving Santa His Seat
Richard Sargent
Sargent had nearly 40 Post covers under his belt before he painted this heartwarming Christmas cover of a little boy (Sargent's neighbor Richie McCullough) who is eager to take advantage of an opportunity to do a good deed—especially with Christmas only a few days away.
CHAPTER 21March 3, 1940
Crack The Whip
Emery Clarke
Emery Clarke painted 7 covers for the Post through a period of 1939-1940. His talent wasn't limited to just cover illustration; he also drew comic strips and caricatures. He painted for several other magazines of the time including Look, This Week and Liberty.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Christmas Traditions by Caryn Drake, Norman Rockwell. Copyright © 2013 Patti Davis. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction: A Brief History of The Saturday Evening Post,1. Sleigh on Snowy Village Street by Walter Baum,
2. Christmas Ornaments by John Atherton,
3. Building Snowmen by Sarah Stilwell-Weber,
4. Christmas Photograph by Amos Sewell,
5. Tree In Town Square by Stevan Dohanos,
6. Centering the Christmas Tree by Stevan Dohanos,
7. Trimming the Tree by George Hughes,
8. Christmas at the Fire Station by Stevan Dohanos,
9. More Snow? by George Hughes,
10. Stealing a Christmas Kiss by Joseph Christian Leyendecker,
11. Christmas Minstrels by J.C. Leyendecker,
12. Santa at the Globe by Norman Rockwell,
13. Department Store at Christmas by John Falter,
14. Crying on Santa's Lap by George Hughes,
15. Night Before Christmas by J.C. Lyendecker,
16. Bus Stop at Christmas by Stevan Dohanos,
17. All Wrapped Up in Christmas by Richard "Dick" Sargent,
18. Tobagganing by George Brehm,
19. Santa at the Map by Norman Rockwell,
20. Giving Santa His Seat by Richard Sargent,
21. Crack The Whip by Emery Clarke,
22. Santa's Lap by J.C. Leyendecker,
23. Rural Post Office at Christmas by Stevan Dohanos,
24. Mailboxes in the Snow by Miriam Tana Hoban,
25. Postman Soaking Feet by J.C. Leyendecker,
26. Do Not Open Until Christmas by Henry Hintermeister,
27. Christmas in Hiding by George Hughes,
28. Sleigh Ride Through Town by WM. Meade Prince,
29. Victorian Christmas Scene by Kraske,
30. Victorian Family at Christmas by J.C. Leyndecker,
31. God Rest Ye Merrie Gentlemen by J.C. Leyendecker,
32. Boys Christmas Choir by Mead Schaeffer,
33. Christmas Prayer by J.C. Leyendecker,
34. We Bin Awful Good by Henry Hintermeister,
35. Santa at the Window by J.C. Leyendecker,
36. Santa Up A Ladder by J.C. Leyendecker,
37. Sleeping Through Santa's Visit by Haddon Sundblom,
38. Christmas Morning by John Falter,
39. Christmas Stocking Joy by J.C. Leyendecker,
40. Christmas Morning by Ben Kimberly Prins,
41. Hug From Santa by J.C. Leyendecker,