"Flat and Chat, Saturday Evening Post Cover" Lot no. 783
By George Hughes (1907-1990)
1949
25.00" x 19.25"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Left
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The Saturday Evening Post Magazine Cover, May 21, 1949
The irritated tire-changer? Why, that's artist George Hughes himself. The Post described, “George Hughes put his own face on the irate man operating upon the flat tire in the cover painting. We don't know that it is so, but Hughes may have served as his own model because he was sick of waiting to be put into a Norman Rockwell cover. He is one of the four Post cover experts who dwell in Arlington, Vermont; John Atherton and Mead Schaeffer have been Rockwellized, and Rockwell himself occasionally wanders delightfully into one of his own scenes. Hughes is a bit conscience-stricken about the palavering ladies in the car, Ethal Benjamin — who is the one behind the wheel — and Dorothy Neff; he says they are prettier than, for sundry technical reasons, he has made them. Mr. Hughes thinks so too.”
(The Saturday Evening Post, May 21, 1949., p. 3)
Explore related art collections: Magazine Covers / 1940s / Saturday Evening Post Covers / Automotive/Transport / Men / Women as Subjects / Humor / $50,000-$100,000 / Work / Labor
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.