"The Tuba Next Door, Post Cover" Lot no. 4529
By George Hughes (1907-1990)
1952
20" x 23"
Oil on Masonite
Signed Lower Right
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Cover of The Saturday Evening Post, September 27, 1952. A woman leans out her window to watch in horror as her new neighbors unload a moving truck full of noisy musical instruments that are sure to disturb the tranquility of the neighborhood.
The Post wrote the following commentary on the cover artwork: "Now, now, lady, let us bear in mind that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. Let us meditate upon how much this world needs more homemade music, where a person thrills to his own created sound. Have you not seen the glory in the eyes of a young lad sitting beside his open window of a summer evening, practicing with all his might upon his trumpet? Can you get such an unworldly soaring of the spirit from revolving a platter inside a box? Look, lady, why don't you and your husband take up the slide trombone and -- What's that you say: Why don't we shut up? O.K., so you want to be difficult. If we were Artist Hughes, we'd shut that window on your neck. Your radio is always on too blankety-blank loud." (The Saturday Evening Post, September 27, 1952, p. 3)
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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.