Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint

This cover was designed by a needlepoint expert—Rosey (Roosevelt) Grier, a former pro for the L.A. Rams and the New York Giants.

According to this issue, Grier appeared on a talk show in the 1970s and “one of the guests brought her work and Rosey was so taken he spent—after she taught him—the entire program pulling yarn through canvas. Later, Rosey would haul his sewing to card games. If he had a good hand, out would come the needlework from under the table, an unusual alternative to the poker face.”

Johnny Unitas by Leifer Neil

Widely considered one of the NFL all time greats, Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts appeared on the cover in December 1964. By this time, photographs had replaced work by artists that the Saturday Evening Post was so known for. Not that photographers aren’t artists, as this great shot by Leifer Neil shows.

The article in this issue was ironically called, “The Runaway Colts.” This referred to an outstanding season in 1964, one of Unitas’ (and the Colts’) best. The title has no bearing on “Bob Irsay’s Midnight Ride,” abandoning Baltimore for Indianapolis, which didn’t occur until 1984. Although he had been retired for a decade by then, Unitas and fellow players were outraged by the move. Unitas passed away in 2002.

“Quarterback Pass” by Maurice Bower

Artist Maurice Bower was brilliant at capturing moments of high-energy action, as this 1935 cover will attest to. Other great examples of this were Bower’s many covers of another kind of athlete: horses. Galloping, muscles straining, nostrils flaring and manes flying—see “Maurice Bower’s Horse Power” from 2009.

“Inflating Football” by Harrison McCreary

Equipment sure has changed since the Roaring Twenties. For one thing, you needed a good set of lungs just to keep the ball inflated. Secondly, it is hard to imagine the helmet provided much protection. A really cute touch to this illustration by artist Harrison McCreary is the 4-leafed-clover pinned to the boy’s sweater for luck. Apparently, the need for a good set of lungs continued into the 1940s—see below.

“Grandma and Football” by Russell Sambrook

In this 1940 cover, the helmet looks a bit more sophisticated, but that ball still needs to be inflated the hard way. If I were this young man, I would do it myself and let grandma get on with her apple peeling. I don’t know how the game will turn out, but something tells me a rockin’ apple pie is in his future.

“College Man’s Number” by George Gibbs

The Saturday Evening Post started out as a newspaper. It didn’t sport a cover and start looking like a magazine until 1899. So, with a virtually new format, artist George Gibbs paints a football cover. Gibbs did several early Post covers as well as inside illustrations and covers for other prominent magazines of the time such as The Ladies Home Journal and Redbook.

First Cabinet Meeting by George Gibbs

One could argue that the Post was around when Washington took the oath of office, if one wanted to stretch the point. At that time it was Ben Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette, which became known as The Saturday Evening Post in 1821. This 1902 cover came at a turbulent time: McKinley had been shot and killed a few months before and Teddy Roosevelt was president. An article about Presidents and how they construct their cabinets was the inspiration for the cover.

Teddy Roosevelt by Edward Penfield

He came to the President’s office under the worst of circumstances: the assassination of his predecessor, William McKinley. It was said by some that he was an “accidental President,” but the Post noted in the March 1905 issue that this time around Teddy was “chosen President…by the largest majority that the history of our country records. In the first case the President stood face to face with a great doubt; to-day he stands face to face with a great belief. In the homely and pithy words of a distinguished man, President Angell, of Ann Arbor, ‘the folks want him’.”

President Taft by– J.C. Leyendecker

Cover artist J.C. Leyendecker painted a fine portrait of President William Howard Taft that appeared on the March 6, 1909 cover. Corpulent and cheerful, the new president held a silk top hat. There have been only twenty-six chief executives, said the Post of this exclusive office, and “the Presidential chair has just been enlarged and specially reinforced for the twenty-seventh, who was seated in it this week.” The Post article described Taft as “the heaviest President, the most traveled President, the best-natured President and the first golf player to occupy the White House. He is a three-hundred-pounder with a built-in smile. When Mr. Roosevelt took him though the White House and showed him how the furnace draws best and how to keep the window in the Red Room from rattling, it was a labor of love, for the two are chums. It was the first time a President had bequeathed a close, personal friend to the country as his successor.”

Eisenhower by Norman Rockwell

“I honestly think he has the most expressive face I’ve ever painted,” Norman Rockwell said of General (not yet president) Dwight Eisenhower. Rockwell put the general through his paces: “Could you act as if you’re whipping out a command?” he would ask. Eisenhower barked, “Forward HARCH!” (I wish I could have been a fly on the wall). “Now laugh,” the artist requested, and Ike did so. And so on through 47 sketches. Rockwell, as we all know, was a stickler for details. The final October 11, 1952 cover was of a friendly, smiling Eisenhower. What Rockwell remembered most was a pleasurable hour and a half discussing painting (Ike also painted) and fishing. You would never know the general was in Denver for a political convention, readying for a grueling presidential campaign.

Richard Nixon by Norman Rockwell

As he did with Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in 1952, Norman Rockwell painted presidential contenders Nixon and Kennedy for the Post in 1960. Rockwell actually painted Nixon six times and after one of the later sittings he noted that Nixon looked basically the same. “Oh, he’s older, sure. Aren’t we all?” The challenge was that Nixon nose. “It’s hell to paint and to keep it from dominating too much.” But the artist added that when “Nixon smiled, he was just about as warm and friendly as the father of two pretty daughters could be.”

John F. Kennedy by Norman Rockwell

It was a little-known Senator John Kennedy that the Post assigned Rockwell to paint in the summer of 1960. When the artist arrived at the Hyannisport compound, Kennedy, still in pajamas, called out to Rockwell to make himself comfortable. “The pajamas were rumpled, but he was wonderful,” the artist noted. Now here’s an odd request of an artist: Kennedy asked Rockwell to make him look at least his age (43). If you’re too young to remember 1960, it was a very big deal that someone so young was running for President. It was a devastated Rockwell that allowed this painting to run again on the Post in December 1963 in Kennedy’s memory. Although Rockwell had painted Kennedy later, it was said the President admired this portrait of him as a presidential candidate.