"Monroe Street Bridge, Saturday Evening Post cover, June 12, 1948" Lot no. 3245
By John Atherton (1900-1952)
1948 (Estimated)
26.25" x 20.25", Framed 32.00" x 25.00"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Right: Atherton
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In this iconic Saturday Evening Post cover, the artist paints himself as the solitary fisherman underneath a Monroe Street Bridge in Spokane, Washington.
Saturday Evening Post cover, June 12, 1948
Explore related art collections: Saturday Evening Post Covers / Landscape / 1940s / $50,000 - $100,000
See all original artwork by John Atherton
ABOUT THE ARTIST
For John Atherton there was no line drawn between “fine” and “commercial” art. He painted pictures for advertisers, magazine covers, and galleries alike, all characterized by his strong sense of design, color and good taste.
Atherton was born in Brainerd, Minnesota, and he studied at the College of the Pacific, and the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He first worked in a number of West Coast art studios learning the basics of his craft. When he won a $500 first prize award in the annual exhibit of the Bohemian Club in 1929, it financed his move to New York.
There he began to do advertisements for General Motors, the Container Corporation of America, and Shell Oil, as well as covers for Fortune, Holiday, and The Saturday Evening Post.
His first one-man show was held in Manhattan in 1936; in the “Artists for Victory” show in 1943, his painting, The Black Horse, won the $3,000 fourth prize from among 14,000 entries. It is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His work is also represented at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.
Atherton’s great avocation was fishing. He tied flies of original design expertly, was a member of the Angler’s Club and author of a book, The Fly and the Fish. His death occurred while he was on a salmon fishing trip in New Brunswick, Canada.