Spencer Douglass Crockwell

After a Day on the Slopes, Beer Advertisement

1954

Beer Belongs advertisement. The illustrations of Douglas Crockwell were often simply signed “Douglass” to avoid confusion with the signature of Norman Rockwell, particularly since their work was being published on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post during the same period. Necessary too, because Crockwell also worked very realistically, and like Rockwell, was particularly good with children. Their backgrounds, however, were entirely different. Crockwell was born in Chicago, Ohio, and took his degree in Science at Washington University, followed by study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago and the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He received his first commission for a cover for The Saturday Evening Post in 1933, and this was followed by many more, as well as work for other periodicals and a long list of national advertisers. During the ‘thirties, he also completed Post Office murals in Vermont, New York State and Mississippi, and began to work on experimental animated films. The films, and inventing a “pan-stereo” viewing...

Date: 1949 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dimensions: 30.00" x 30.00" Signature: Signed Lower Right Advertisement for Maxwell House Coffee, "The Quartet, The Dog...

Only Ballantine Ale Brews "Brewer's Gold," ad illustration appeared in the major magazines of the day. A magic moment is caught at a peak point of drama. It's the instant of friends having fun. A cold beer from the fridge is offered and it's is acknowledged with a head nod. The woman in the foreground covers her giggling face reacting to a funny comment. The decisive moment is preserved. Sounds like a critique of an art photograph? No, it's an illustrator. This ingenious Infiniti "S" composition simultaneously represents the best of photography and painting. Cartier-Bresson could have captured the precise moment. While Nicolas Poussin could have rendered the complex figural composition. Add to it , a painting technique and color scheme with the quick drama of a post-impressionist. We have a great work of art by an overlooked American illustrator/artist/painter, Mike Ludlow...

A somewhat similar Cornwell featuring a strong woman at the center of a the composition just sold at Christie's for $164,000. In this work we also see a strong woman at the center of the composition. Here she surrounded by men. More than 20 beautifully rendered post-impressionist portraits in character, define Dean Cornwell as one of America's great artists. In his time, he was a famous as Norman Rockwell and was Norman Rockwell's favorite illustrator. "One thing puzzled Dirty Dan extremely. That was the perfectly frank, friendly manner in which his employer and this outcast woman greeted each other, the earnestness with which they conversed, and the effect of the woman's low-spoken words upon the color of Hector McKaye's face." Morris Weiss collection...