John Carlton Atherton (January 7, 1900 - September 16, 1952) was an American painter and magazine illustrator, writer and designer. His works form part of numerous collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, [1] Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [2] [3] [4]
He was the son of James Chester Atherton (1868-1928) and Carrie B. Martin (1871-1909). He was born in Brainerd, Minnesota. [5] His father was Canadian born. His parents relocated from Minnesota to Washington State, with his maternal grandparents whilst he was still an infant. He attended high school in Spokane, Washington.
During his early years he never displayed an aptitude for art; rather, his first love being nature and the activities he relished there, mainly fishing and hunting. He enlisted in 1917, serving briefly in the U.S. Navy for a year during World War I. At the end of the war, determined to get an education he worked various part-time jobs, as a sign painter and playing a banjo in a dance band to pay his enrolment fee at the College of the Pacific and The California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Once there, he also worked in the surrounding studios developing his oil painting techniques.
A first prize award of $500 at the annual exhibition of the Bohemian Club in 1929, financed his one way trip to New York City, which helped to launch his career as an artist. [6]
Atherton had aspired to be a fine artist, however his first paid jobs were for commercial art firms designing advertisements for corporations such as General Motors, Shell Oil, Container Corporation of America, and Dole. However, by 1936, encouraged primarily by friends, such as Alexander Brook, an acclaimed New York realist painter, he returned to the fine arts.
Atherton continued to accept numerous commissions for magazine illustrations; such as Fortune magazine, and over the years he would paint more than forty covers for The Saturday Evening Post starting with his December 1942 design, “Patient Dog.” This picture is reminiscent of his friend Norman Rockwell ‘Americana style’ and captures a poignant moment of nostalgia, where a loyal dog looks toward a wall of hunting equipment and a framed picture of his owner in military uniform.
Atherton accomplished his first one-man show in Manhattan in 1936. His Painting, “The Black Horse” won the $3000 fourth prize from among a pool of 14,000 entries. This painting forms part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in New York. [7]
Atherton achieved recognition in New York City and elsewhere during the 1930s. Having exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, [8] his paintings began to be collected by museums; including the Museum of Modern Art [9] and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
His reputation increased with his art deco stone lithograph poster for the 1939 New York World's Fair. In 1941, his design won first place in the Museum of Modern Arts “National Defense Poster Competition”.
Founded in 1948 in Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A. The idea was conceived by members of the New York Society of Illustrators (SOI), but due to the Society's legal status, could not be operated by it. SOI member Albert Dorne led the initiative to set up a separate entity, and recruited the support of Norman Rockwell, who was also an SOI member. For the founding faculty, Dorne recruited Atherton, as well as accomplished artists such as Austin Briggs, Stevan Dohanos, Robert Fawcett, Peter Helck, Fred Ludekens, Al Parker, Norman Rockwell, Ben Stahl, Harold von Schmidt and Jon Whitcomb. [19]
He collaborated with Jon Whitcomb with the book “How I Make a Picture: Lesson 1-9, Parts 1”. [20] [21]
Atherton as an active member from his arrival in New York. The society have owned many of his works. Ex-collection includes:
Atherton, as his peers had many of his works framed by Henry Heydenryk Jr. [23]
On November 2, 1926, he married Polly “Maxine” Breese (1903-1997). [24] [25] They had one daughter, Mary Atherton, born in 1932.
Atherton's often chose industrial landscapes, however found himself spending considerable time in Westport, Connecticut, with an active artistic community, and it became home for him, and his family. He then moved to Arlington, Vermont. [26]
Norman Rockwell enlisted Atherton in what was to be the only collaborative painting in his career. [27]
He was part of a group of artists including a Norman Rockwell, Mead Schaeffer and George Hughes who established residences in Arlington. [28] Atherton and Mead Schaeffer were avid fly fishermen and they carefully chose the location for the group, [29] conveniently located near the legendary Battenkill River.
In his free time, Atherton continued to enjoy fly-fishing. [30] He brought his artistic talent into the field of fishing, [31] when he wrote and illustrated the fishing classic, “The Fly and The Fish”. [32]
He died in New Brunswick, Canada in 1952, [33] at the age of 52 in a drowning accident while fly-fishing. [34]
The Western Connecticut State University holds an extensive archive on this artist. [35]
His wife, Maxine also published a memoir “The Fly Fisher and the River” [36] She married Watson Wyckoff in 1960.
He is a direct descendant of James Atherton, [37] [38] one of the First Settlers of New England; who arrived in Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1630s.
His direct ancestor, Benjamin Atherton was from Colonial Massachusetts and settled in Maugerville, New Brunswick in 1765. His grandfather, Albert Atherton (1833-1922) was a lumber merchant who relocated to Minnesota between 1881 and 1885. His Canadian born aunt, Maggie L Atherton (1865-1946), gave an account of the Atherton ancestry and retained a number of newspaper clippings of Atherton‘s painting winning the first prize of $500 awarded by Senator James D. Phelan in San Francisco in 1929. [39]
Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout Is Reverent and A Guiding Hand,.
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager.
Henry Ossawa Tanner was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in French artistic circles. His painting Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Tanner's Resurrection of Lazarus was purchased by the French government after winning the third-place medal at the 1897 Salon. In 1923, the French government elected Tanner chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was one of the most prominent and financially successful freelance commercial artists in the U.S. He was active between 1895 and 1951 producing drawings and paintings for hundreds of posters, books, advertisements, and magazine covers and stories. He is best known for his 80 covers for Collier's Weekly, 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and advertising illustrations for B. Kuppenheimer men's clothing and Arrow brand shirts and detachable collars. He was one of the few known gay artists working in the early-twentieth century U.S.
American Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that included paintings, murals, lithographs, and illustrations depicting realistic scenes of rural and small-town America primarily in the Midwest. It arose in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression, and ended in the 1940s due to the end of World War II and a lack of development within the movement. It reached its height of popularity from 1930 to 1935, as it was widely appreciated for its reassuring images of the American heartland during the Great Depression. Despite major stylistic differences between specific artists, Regionalist art in general was in a relatively conservative and traditionalist style that appealed to popular American sensibilities, while strictly opposing the perceived domination of French art.
Famous Artists School is an art correspondence course institution, in operation since 1948. The school was founded by members of the New York Society of Illustrators, principally Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell.
Benjamin Albert Stahl was an American artist, illustrator and author. He showed precocious talent, winning a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago at age twelve. His artwork appeared in the International Watercolor Show at the Art Institute when he was sixteen. He later taught at the Art Institute, as well as at the American Academy of Art, the Art Students League of New York, Brooklyn's Pratt Institute and at various universities.
John Philip Falter was an American artist best known for his many cover paintings for The Saturday Evening Post.
Willie Gillis, Jr. is a fictional character created by Norman Rockwell for a series of World War II paintings that appeared on the covers of 11 issues of The Saturday Evening Post between 1941 and 1946. Gillis was an everyman with the rank of private whose career was tracked on the cover of the Post from induction through discharge without being depicted in battle. He and his girlfriend were modeled by two of Rockwell's acquaintances.
The Four Freedoms is a series of four oil paintings made in 1943 by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—are each approximately 45.75 by 35.5 inches, and are now in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The four freedoms refer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's January 1941 Four Freedoms State of the Union address, in which he identified essential human rights that should be universally protected. The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter, and became part of the Charter of the United Nations. The paintings were reproduced in The Saturday Evening Post over four consecutive weeks in 1943, alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day. They became the highlight of a touring exhibition sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The exhibition and accompanying sales drives of war bonds raised over $132 million.
Freedom from Want, also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I'll Be Home for Christmas, is the third of the Four Freedoms series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The works were inspired by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms.
Ogden Minton Pleissner (1905–1983) was an American painter, specializing in landscapes and war art related to his service in World War II.
Maxwell Coburn Whitmore was an American painter and magazine illustrator known for his Saturday Evening Post covers, and a commercial artist whose work included advertisements for Gallo Wine and other brands. He additionally became known as a race-car designer.
Fletcher Martin was an American painter, illustrator, muralist and educator. He is best known for his images of military life during World War II and his sometimes brutal images of boxing and other sports.
Henry Edison McDaniel was a watercolor artist of landscapes, trout and salmon fishing scenes.
Tom Lovell was an American illustrator and painter. He was a creator of pulp fiction magazine covers and illustrations, and of visual art of the American West. He produced illustrations for National Geographic magazine and many others, and painted many historical Western subjects such as interactions between Indians and white settlers and traders. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 1974.
Florian Kenneth Lawton was an American visual artist and a realist painter who worked primarily in a regional style.
Robert Crossley Atherton ; was an American magazine editor, author, publisher, artist and designer. He was the art director at Ladies' Home Journal for twelve years and the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 7 years; the last male editor-in-chief of this former literary magazine from 1959 to 1965. He remained with Cosmopolitan’s parent company, Hearst Magazines, becoming International Travel Editor for their wide portfolio of magazines.
Marriage License is an oil painting by American illustrator Norman Rockwell created for the cover of the June 11, 1955, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It depicts a young man and woman filling out a marriage license application at a government building in front of a bored-looking clerk. The man is dressed in a tan suit and has his arm around his partner, who is wearing a yellow dress and standing on tiptoe to sign her name. Although the room and its furnishings are dark, the couple are illuminated by the window beside them. The contrast between the couple and the clerk highlights two reoccurring themes in Rockwell's works: young love and ordinary life.
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