Inside Front Cover by William Sayles
Book Series: One
A few months ago Sara and I were exploring the Goodwill Outlet in Sodo. If you’ve never been to a Goodwill Outlet, it’s where items that fail to sell in the retail stores are dumped into huge bins and sold at 75% off. You can pick up a bunch of different items there from records to dart boards to sketchy looking tools. They even sell clothes by the pound.
We went through the whole place and eventually landed in the books section. There was mountains of books piled with no particular rhyme or reason. While searching through the piles, Sara picked up “The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places,” a mouth full of a name if I’ve ever heard one. She opened up to the inside cover and we immediately knew that we had found a gem. Originally published in 1950 by Simon and Schuster for the Ford Motor Company and designed by Artists and Writers Guild Inc., Treasury is a collection of recipes, paintings, and descriptions of famous and not so famous restaurants around the United States.
The book is filled with 250 pages of wonderful mid-century illustrations in a variety of styles and by a multitude of artists. Most notably Charley Harper. I’ve included some scans of the interiors.
Book Cover by William Sayles
I wasn’t able to find much information about William, but you can visit his daughter’s blog.
It looks like painting runs in the family.
Another amazing illustration on the title page. Arthur Lougee was the art director for the Ford Times.
I love the bit about 1985!
Most of the uncredited artwork in the book is in this style.
I love the style of painting on the left.
The aforementioned Harpers. The painting on the right reminds me of the Chuey Residence, by Richard Neutra.
“Harpers’ new style first appeared in the December 1948 issue of the Ford Times – in the recipe section. Arthur Lougee, the Ford Times art director, was sufficiently impressed and over the next several years Harper was given a number of commissions for feature articles and cover illustrations.”
Jim Hughes
I recommend checking out Jim’s blog to read the rest of his article about Harper & Lougee.
(Plus the hi resolution Harper imagery!)
I love the illustrated textures on the left.
The Camlin Hotel on 9th Ave and Pine here in Seattle.
Another set from Washington. I love that crab!
We grabbed a few other books during our expedition, and we’ll be sure to post more in our book series, but until then,
Happy motoring and successful cooking!
Thanks for posting my Dad’s work! He recently began painting like that again, after many years of doing more abstract stuff. You may be interested in an exhibit I am curating about the company my father was in in WWII called the Ghost Army, (or the 603d Camouflage Engineers Battalion.) It was made up of art students and they used dummy tanks, camouflage and sound effects as their weapons. Many famous artists like Bill Blass & Ellsworth Kelly were also in that battalion. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141308195935402 and here is a film being made about it http://www.ghostarmy.org