"Distracted Golfer, Saturday Evening Post Cover"   Lot no. 3258

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By Constantin Alajalov (American- 1900-1987)

1960 (Estimated)
23.00" x 18.00"
Gouache on Board
Signed Lower Left

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Original cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, July 2,1960.

 

The Post described, ““Golfe '' was outlawed during its infancy in Scotland because too many archers, on whom the defense of the land rested, were golfing when they should have been on the archery range. Today it’s possible to play golf and shoot arrows (or daggers, at least) simultaneously; witness the baleful glare of the sourpuss on our cover. Artist Constantin Alajalov, who shoots in the high 80’s, sympathizes with sourpusses whose games are sabotaged by the Sunbonnet Sam and his ilk. Sam is the so-and-so in the foreground who is loudly striking up an acquaintance while our jittery golfer asks himself, Isn’t that the chowderhead whose noisy, blankety-blank camera shutter cost me a stroke on the last green? Which helps explain why certain golfers appear to have a stroke every time they drop a stroke.” 

 

(The Saturday Evening Post, July 2,1960, p. 3)

 



Explore related art collections: Saturday Evening Post Covers / Humor / Sports

See all original artwork by Constantin Alajalov

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

Constantin Alajalov sold his first cover to The New Yorker magazine in 1926, and continued to paint a long and colorful series of satirical vignettes of American life for both The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post until 1962.

    Alajalov was born in the Russian town of Rostov-on-the-Don. The Revolution came when he was seventeen and a student at the University of Petrograd. He survived this period by working as a government artist, painting huge propaganda pictures and portraits, and in 1921, he made his way to Constantinople, which was an international refugee haven.

    Although largely self-taught as an artist, Alajalov earned a precarious living by sketching portraits in bars or painting sidewalk advertisements for movie houses. He progressed to doing murals for night clubs, taking mostly food as payment. After two years of this, he saved enough to pay his passage to America.

    Once here, Alajalov resumed painting murals, in Russian night clubs, and within three years had sold that first New Yorker cover. For the rest of his career, he continued to give us a candid and humorous look at our foibles.