"Swell Ride Down, Saturday Evening Post Cover" Lot no. 3446
By John Philip Falter (1910-1982)
1961
28" x 23"
Oil on Masonite
Signed Lower left
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The present work was published as the cover illustration of the February 3rd, 1962 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
The Post editors wrote of this cover, “The kids plugging up the hill can look forward to a swell ride down, but they’ve got a long pull ahead of them first. If only they knew it, there’s an easier way to go up, especially if a patient but the absentminded father is at hand...Rather obtusely we asked artist John Falter if he had painted all those vertical sled tracks lying on his side, propped on his left elbow Roman-banquet style. He had not, he replied pityingly but kindly—obviously he needed only to turn the canvas on its side. Which is as good an explanation as any for the fact that his signature is headed up the hill too.” (The Saturday Evening Post, February 3, 1962, p. 3)
Explore related art collections: Saturday Evening Post Covers / Sports / Winter / Children / Magazine Covers / $100,000 & Above / 1960s
See all original artwork by John Philip Falter
ABOUT THE ARTIST
John Philip Falter was born in Plattsmouth and reared in Falls City, Nebraska. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, the Art Students League in New York on a scholarship, and the Grand Central School of Art in New York. Among his teachers were Mahonri Young, George Wright and Monte Crews.
Falter began his career in illustration early, starting with the Pulps, and at 20, sold his first picture to Liberty, a “slick” paper magazine. Talented and prolific, he soon added most of the other major magazines, and many advertising agencies, to his roster of clients.
His most important pictures were painted for the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, and he produced more than 200 of them. Many were based on the experiences of his Nebraska boyhood, in small town and country settings. He also painted a notable series of detailed street scenes in cities across the United States. These grew out of a chance visit of a Post art editor to Falter’s studio; there a picture of Gramercy Park caught his eye, which Falter had painted for pleasure.
John served in the Navy as a Chief Boatswain’s Mate during World War II; later, he was commissioned a Lieutenant on special art assignments. Among other projects after the war, he illustrated over 40 books for Reader’s Digest and completed many portrait commissions, including those of Admiral Halsey, Louis Armstrong, Olivia de Havilland, James Cagney, Mrs. Clark Clifford, and tenor John Charles Thomas. He later painted an outstanding series of historical subjects for the Bicentennial, commissioned by the 3M Company in 1976.
Falter was a member of the Society of Illustrators, the Players, and the Philadelphia Sketch Club. In 1976, he was elected to the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame. Although he did not often exhibit, his paintings are in several museums.