“So light they almost fly,” says the caption associated with this piece of mid-1900’s advertising art. EphemeraNow.com has many more. I love ad art, the older the better, having been hooked on it years ago by a volume of the incredible ad illustrations of Franklin Booth (later an influence on comics inkers such as Berni Wrightson). Anyway, this page has a lot of wonderful examples of advertising art, mostly in color.
This one could almost be an Edward Hopper, except that the people are too engaged with one another and their surroundings. The skill of some of these artists is considerable: I really like the lighting effects in this one. And there are occasional occurrences of artists we know better for other things, doing what they have to to keep the family eating — check out this Chesley Bonestell, for example. And look at this one: “New York lunch, Paris brunch.” Suborbital “hybrid” spaceplane, or just Really Fast Dream Jet? God knows. But I get the feeling the Jetsons are somewhere just out of frame…
This one is wonderful too. Peter points out to me that the artist may have based his conception on drawings or reports of the Saunders-Roe “Princess” giant flying boat then being built in the UK; the Princess apparently contained a bar, a cinema, possibly also a restaurant…
