"Messy Room, Neat Boys, Saturday Evening Post Cover"   Lot no. 4083

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By George Hughes (1907-1990)

1955
29.25" x 22.25"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Left

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Original cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, October 22, 1955.

 

The Post described, “Mother is making rapid progress at teaching the boys to maintain a tidy room; if George Hughes had painted this the day school opened, the detail would have given him a lame arm. Now, here is portrayed an intelligent female who in her delicate way molds the character of men; so when her boys are seniors in college, they will be 27 per cent tidier than now. Then they will get married and never leave so much as a pipe cleaner lying about—for six weeks. After that they will revert to human beings, and what they don’t chuck around will be what they haven’t got. A woman’s picking-up-stuff is never done. Why doesn't this mother shock the boys into tidy conduct by simply leaving their shambles untouched? Because they like it this way. She’d better go buy herself a new hat.” 

 

(The Saturday Evening Post, October 22, 1955., p. 3)


 

J. Cohn, Covers of the Saturday Evening Post, New York, 1998, p. 245, illustrated.


George Hughes was an American illustrator who created more than 100 covers for the Saturday Evening Post and whose work was featured in other popular publications such as Vanity Fair. This piece was published as the cover illustration of the October 22, 1955 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.



Explore related art collections: Saturday Evening Post Covers / Humor / Family / $100,000 & Above / 1950s

See all original artwork by George Hughes

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

A native New Yorker, George Hughes studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. Some of his early work included fashion drawing, and there was a stint as a special designer in the automobile field in Detroit.

   For many years, Hughes was one of the most prolific painters of Saturday Evening Post covers; in addition, he painted many editorial illustrations for the Post and other publications, including McCall’s, Woman’s Day, American Magazine, Reader’s Digest, and Cosmopolitan magazines.

   Hughes was one of the originators and masters of the “sitcom” magazine cover, and through his efforts, readers would spend minutes rather than seconds looking at the covers.

   Also a painter, he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Detroit Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In recent years he restricted his work to portraiture.