My first big break: Ford Times

In may last post I showed a sample painting that I had done, it was a western scene with a little old red Ford car. Jim Donahue, the owner of the studio that I was working at, Allied Artists, was very excited about the sample. He had a great idea, show it to the editor of Ford Times Magazine. Sure enough, Jim came back from his visit to Arthur Lougee, the art director of the magazine, and said that they bought the painting. They also said that they would buy everything that I painted providing I add a little red Ford in the picture. This was my first big break in the art business. Below is a profile of me that was printed in the magazine.




Here is a painting that I did without the little red Ford, it's a rendering done with colored inks, a medium that I frequently worked with at that time.



The above painting was done using Windsor and Newton Designer's colors and the one below I rendered with colored inks.


This was a real big break for me. I did a lot of work for Ford Times from 1947 through 1951. The exposure that the magazine gave me brought in many advertising assignments from new clients. I was a very busy fellow. Jim Donahue was a great salesman, he brought in a lot of work from the newly formed auto company Kaiser Frazer. I was also fortunate to work with a couple of other artists, the great Cliff Roberts and the wild Don Silverstein. Cliff and Don did a great deal of decorative and cartoon type work. I was the oldest at 19, Cliff was 18 and Don was 17 years old.



Above is a photo of Cliff and below is a shot of Don in a wild mood. We were all fortunate to have been part of the Detroit commercial art scene at that time, there was a lot of work and tremendous opportunities for young artists. To see some of Cliff's and Don's great art go to todaysinspiration.blogspot.com, Cliff's art was posted on October 6, 2007 and Don's work was posted on January 25, 2008.





Here's a shot of me at the time.