"Lighthouse Keeper, Brant Point"   Lot no. 3449

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By Stevan Dohanos (American- 1907-1994)

1954
35 5/8" x 27 7/8"
Mixed Media on Paperboard Laid Down on Masonite
Signed Lower Left ‘Stevan Dohanos’

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The present work was published as the cover illustration of the June 26th, 1954 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

The Post described, “Here a Coast Guard man is adding to his duties the task of guarding coastal waters against getting too crowded with fish. This he does by casting a line into the briny and murmuring, “Come supper, come supper.” Painter Dohanos says he doesn't know whether the lighthouse keeper’s wife or another guardsman inhabits that kitchen, for he can’t see any farther into the window than you can. Visible evidence suggests a wife, who has imposed the classic wifely rule; if men catch fish, they can darn well clean them too, and outdoors, see? Dohanos suspects that in the kitchen a cranberry pie is being baked , for while studying a lighthouse he made the acquaintance of a cranberry bog. By the way, what do sea gulls think? Same as men. Let’s eat.”

(The Saturday Evening Post, June 26, 1954, p. 3) Later responding to a letter from a curious reader about the location, the editors further explained, “Artist Dohanos had to travel around to assemble his picture. The lighthouse is at Brant Point, Nantucket; the house in the foreground came out of Dohanos’ imagination. The man cleaning the fosh is the keeper of the lighthouse at West Chop, Martha’s Vineyard.” (The Saturday Evening Post, October 30, 1954)



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ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

 Stevan Dohanos made his mark as a nationally famous cover artist for The Saturday Evening Post and chronicler of Americana, but he began at the bottom.

   He studied nights at the Cleveland School of Art long enough to get a job as an apprentice letterer, and gradually developed a solid studio background. A hard worker, he simultaneously painted and printed woodcuts for national exhibitions.

   In 1936, he painted an assignment for the Treasury Art Project in the Virgin Islands, and later, various mural commissions for federal buildings in Elkins, West Virginia; West Palm Beach, Florida; and Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands. His pictures are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Avery Memorial of Hartford, and the New Britain Museum of American Art.

   His illustrations have appeared in almost all of the major magazines; he painted over 100 covers for The Saturday Evening Post. Twice a victim of tuberculosis himself, Dohanos contributed Christmas seal designs to the National Tuberculosis Association, and made many posters and designs for national and local charitable purposes. He designed well over forty stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, and for several years he served on the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee for the Postmaster General and as its Design Coordinator.

    Dohanos was a member of the National Society of Mural Painters, the Artists and Writers club, the Dutch Treat Club. He served as President of the Society of Illustrators from 1961-63, was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1971, and served as Honorary President from 1982 until his death.