Cover Collection: Handsome Horses

Our sister publication, The Country Gentleman, has featured dozens of elegant equines. If you’re a horse person, these covers are for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover Gallery: A Day at the Beach

These beachgoers on the covers of the Post are having the dream summer vacation.

The Saturday Evening Post was the first magazine to accept Ellen Pyle’s work after her husband’s death in 1919. “The girl I am most interested in painting is the unaffected natural American type,” Pyle said in her 1928 interview with the Post. Her children often posed as models for Pyle’s paintings, but it was her brilliant use of color and loose, broad brushstroke style that made her one of the Post’s most recognizable female artists.

 

Charles A. MacLellan started creating art for the Post during a time when narrative illustrations dominated the covers. His most memorable covers were those with children, typically boys. Often these boys were in some kind of trouble, but it’s the kind of trouble that makes their viewer smile. In his portraits of women, MacLellan nearly always drew them in action and often gave his models a prop, such as this woman and her beach clothes.

 

 

This is one of six covers that Alex Ross painted for the Saturday Evening Post. All of his covers featured beautiful women, but this beach scene is the only one that doesn’t focus on a single girl. This 1943 cover does follow Ross’ usual style, however, because the women don’t appear to be over-joyed about their card game.

 

 

Constanin Alajalov’s painting of the new arrivals picking their green and embarrassed way through the tanned regulars, could have been made on any beach in the country. For that feeling of outstanding pallor is well known from coast to coast, and there is no lotion for it, except that in a few days you can sneer at even later arrivals. Alajalov made his sketches in Palm Beach, Florida, when the Northerners were arriving last winter.

Artist John Falter’s setting for his surf-bathing cover is Ogunquit, Maine. He made his first sketches while spending the summer in Maine, but didn’t get around to painting until last winter. By that time the lucky lad was in Phoenix, Arizona. The hotter that Arizona sun got, the more fondly the artist thought of Maine’s cool air and cool spray. So he went to work on a picture of Maine as remembered in the Southwest. The pretty girl in the left foreground, just emerging and shaking out her hair, often appears in Falter’s cover paintings. But doesn’t get a model’s pay for her work. She is Margaret Falter. John’s wife.

 

Don’t worry about the tiny cover girl who is going down to the awesome sea with her eight-inch ship. Just as Austin Briggs, who was vacationing at Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina, spied the seagoing tot, her mother let out a yelp and splashed into the foam after her. Now there, thought Briggs prophetically, could be my first Post cover.

 

In the winter, people buy sun lamps to get sun, and in the summer they buy beach umbrellas to keep the sun off. Well, have a wonderful time, folks; build your sand castles and your dream castles; let the cool winds and the hot dogs renew you; and don’t even let the annoyment creep in if that boy’s radio prevents your hearing the sweet nothings he whispers to his girl. Now turn the page, before the kids start throwing sand.

 

Mr. Rodney Fischer, an eminent metropolitan banker who is accustomed to being treated with deep respect, is not being. If that is a sardine he has caught, it may cop the surf-casting championship, for it is indeed of great size. But the boys’ happy faces and the man’s apoplectic face indicate that it is a small sample, or child, of something more ambitious. Mr. F. should set his rod in the gadget Dick Sargent has painted behind him, and lie down and relax his bile; if he goes to sleep, he may catch something decent. While he stands up, his blinding raiment must terrify all the fish who are old enough to think.

Cover Gallery: Twentieth Century Nurses

On the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, we celebrate nurses everywhere. Although most of these Post covers limit nurses to the maternity ward, the reality of their jobs was much more complex, far-reaching, and demanding than these sunny snapshots reveal.

While much has changed (can you imagine your nurse helping you light your cigarette?), we can’t overestimate the enormous contribution that nurses have made to health care. Thank you for all that you do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bathing Beauties

Woman at the Shore – Bradshaw Crandall
With floppy sunhat providing shade and shield from harsh rays, this head-turner is free to luxuriate in the beachside aurora of a salty summer’s day.

Sunburned Sunbather – Penrhyn Stanlaws
No amount of lathering is going to ease a smolder that red. Though this burned beachgoer can take comfort in the fact that her dual-toned skin and swimsuit form a rather patriotic guise.

Sunbathers – John LaGatta
Stretched out under the lacy shelter of a parasol, these ladies are prepared to transform the lawn into a first-class pinup photo shoot.

Three Bathing Beauties – John LaGatta
Garbed in their complementary aquamarine getups, this trio may just fade into the luster of the ocean blue once they’ve hit the dunes.

Sitting on the Diving Board – Penrhyn Stanlaws
For those seaside loungers wishing to hold court over the shimmering surface without dampening their locks, perching on a diving board is a suitable compromise.

Woman in Beach Outfit – Charles A. MacLellan
Sporting sandals is just an invitation to trek sand about for weeks afterward. But it’s well worth it when the elegantly casual ensemble will draw every eye on the shore.

Ski Boarding Couple – Robert C. Kauffmann
It’s surf’s up or more appropriately skis up for this golden couple as they crest another foamy wave. And if they should happen to capsize, that striking crimson of hers will make them easily spotted for pickup.

At the Pool – John LaGatta
Whether perfecting a competitive breaststroke or just dipping toes in the drink, poolside is the place to be in summer’s steamiest weeks.

Broken Beach Chair – John Hyde Phillips
A smarting smack to the rear wasn’t exactly on this perturbed stunner’s checklist for beach day. At least she had a sandy landing to cushion the spill.

Up on the Roof – Dominice Cammerota
Everyone pines for a tropical escape; but in a pinch, an urban rooftop destination will do, and it’s just as toasty. If you can’t reach the beaches, you can always climb a little closer to the sun.

Tan Lines – Albert W. Hampson
X marks the spot for tan-line regret as this socialite discovers her sun-cooked body art isn’t going to pair well with the plunging backline of that pearly frock.

Card Game at the Beach – Alex Ross
When the hours have worn everyone down, a few bubbly sips and a cool-off card game under the umbrella may be just the right pick-me-up before a final splashdown.