"After Church, Post Cover" Lot no. 4565
By Stevan Dohanos (American- 1907-1994)
1949
39 x 30 inches
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
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The Saturday Evening Post cover, April 16, 1949
The Post described, "As church is over, on the Post's Easter cover, our fancy lightly turns to ladies' hats. That bebirded toppiece in the foreground cost Artist Stevan Dohanos a pretty dollar, because the lady under it -- in the purple suit-- is Mrs. Dohanos. Ah, well, Easter comes but once a year. The artist asked each of the women in the picture to nominate two or three of her own hats to pose in, and he picked the ones he liked. This is as near as a man ever comes to selecting a woman's hat. Dohanos has painted the Rev. Walter Ovid Kinsolving, of the Lyons Plains Episcopal Church, Westport, Connecticut, shaking hands with some Westport and Norwalk people in the doorway of Christ Church, Exeter, New Hampshire, but the rector doesn't seem a bit confused." (The Saturday Evening Post, April 16, 1949, p. 3)
This piece created for the cover of April 1949 The Saturday Evening Post, depicts congregation members mingling following an Easter Sunday service on the steps of the Wilton Episcopal Church in Wilton, Connecticut, now the Wilton Baptist Church. In the scene, Dohanos featured his wife, friends and community members as his models. According to a hand-written note from the artist being sold along with the painting, the crowd included Helen and Eugene C. Beck, Jr. and their children, Hannah Lee and Helen. Also depicted is Mrs. Katherine Ketzinger, and one of the ladies on the steps was known in the community to work at the Weston, Connecticut Town Hall. The artist's wife is pictured prominently in the foreground with her back turned to the viewer, elegantly dressed in a purple suit, fashionable hat and fur stole.
The previous owner of this work acquired the canvas around 1980 while working at the Wilton Gallery in Connecticut, owned by Gary Dietz. In June of 1980, the gallery held an exhibition of works by Dohanos and his sons Peter, Paul and Anthony, which featured paintings that Dohanos had created for his newly published book titled Stevan Dohanos, American Realist. Upon meeting the artist, Mrs. Vos recalls that he invited her along with her husband to visit his studio, and allowed them to choose a painting for purchase. The work remained in the Vos family since its acquisition at that time until purchased by The Illustrated Gallery in May, 2022.
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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.