Drat! Or should I say draft? Midnight yesterday was the last call for beer day. This is a cover I've been waiting for an opportunity to share for so long I simply couldn't throw it back in the cooler for another year. A bit of history: long ago I spotted a smudgy thumbnail of this 1922 issue of Judge on eBay and it immediately set my Bolles radar pinging. I had no choice but to get it. After the issue showed up in the mail my intuition was confirmed. The telltale EB was faintly initialed in the shadow of the glass (notice the tiny conceit of how the descender of the "B" extends ever so slightly out of the shadow). What a thrill. This has to be the most atypical cover of any Bolles ever did.
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So what clued me in? First, even at low resolution I could tell it was a quality illustration, but then Judge had a bullpen full of top rate illustrators including the likes of Flagg, Held, and Lagatta. What set this image off were the lighlights. Bolles did a lot of commercial art and reflective materials (glass, porcelain) often had strong highlights with the light source located directly in the midline. Second, the shadow had some Bolles touches too it, amorphic with a warm to cold register. Or maybe I just lucked out.
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At any rate I think the cover is a hoot, and you have to wonder how long it took Enoch to paint all those little bubbles. And of all things, the cover was swiped by another artist (Bolles hated that) nearly a decade later, on another cover of Judge no less (hard to believe prohibition lasted that long). Who knows if the "model" was a glass of root beer or the real thing. Although Enoch might have an occasional beer I very much doubt if he took his oils and canvas to the nearest speakeasy to solicit an appropriate model.
Cheers!
6 comments:
Terrific painting, great find. Not to take away from it at all, but It's amazingly like what Frank Kelly Freas would have created in the 1950s for a faux ad for Mad Magazine.
Did he do any commercial work outside of Science Fiction? I loved his work with its subtle blend of realism with cartooning.
I'm not aware of any mainstream commercial illustration, but his work for Mad Magazine was replete with mainstream parody. He mimicked many national ads with such accuracy that, well, it felt like the real thing at first glance.
But I remember one painting in particular that your 'Last Call' post reminded me of. It was a still life of liquor bottles that I studied for hours in trying to learn his method of blending highlights and glass textures. I did a school art project where I mimicked his mimic. I wish I could have had this Bolles cover to work from, I probably would have done an even better job of it.
Great find Jack, you are the ultimate Bolles detective. Our man Enoch was very proficient in all avenues of illustrative art. Any thoughts on the issue of GAY PARISIENNE that sold for $492 last week?
Hi Gary,
This Judge was a great find and a deal too. But not to worry I have have a few more gems to share in coming posts. As for the price for the Gay Parisienne, as much as I liked that cover, I think it was crazy! You have to wonder what an issue of Stolen Sweets or Cupid's Capers would go for.
I agree with you Jack, the GAY PARISIENNE was a very nice cover, that i would love to have, but at nowhere close to that price
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