Saturday Evening Post Covers: 1910-1971

I guess I was feeling sentimental and nostalgic again; got to thinking about America in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, and Norman Rockwell came to mind, and all those SATURDAY EVENING POST covers. He painted 322 of them in his career. J.C. Leyendecker was also a talented and very popular illustrator, his career starting durin WWI. Later Douglas Crockwell did some fine work.

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. While the publication traces its historical roots to Benjamin Franklin and The Pennsylvania Gazette first published in 1728, The Saturday Evening Post, rechristened under new ownership in 1821 as a four-page newspaper, eventually became the most widely circulated weekly magazine. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer (1899–1937).

The Saturday Evening Post published current event articles, editorials, human interest pieces, humor, illustrations, a letter column, poetry (including work written by readers), single-panel cartoons and stories by the leading writers of the time. It was known for commissioning lavish illustrations and original works of fiction. Illustrations were featured on the cover, and embedded in stories and advertising. Some Post illustrations became popular and continue to be reproduced as posters or prints, especially those by Norman Rockwell.

Curtis Publishing Co. stopped publishing the Post in 1969 after the company lost a landmark defamation suit and was ordered to pay over $3 million in damages. The Post was revived in 1971 as a quarterly publication. Today, the Saturday Evening Post magazine is published six times a year by the "Saturday Evening Post Society", which purchased the magazine in 1982.

1916, Saturday Evening Post editor George Lorimer discovered Rockwell, then an unknown 22-year-old New York artist. Lorimer promptly purchased two illustrations from Rockwell, using them as covers, and commissioned three more drawings. Rockwell's illustrations of the American family and rural life of a bygone era became icons. During his 50-year career with the Post, Rockwell painted more than 300 covers.

The Post also employed Nebraska artist John Philip Falter, who became known "as a painter of Americana with an accent of the Middle West," who "brought out some of the homeliness and humor of Middle Western town life and home life." He produced 120 covers for the Post between 1943 and 1968, ceasing only when the magazine began displaying photographs on its covers. Other cover illustrators include the artists N.C. Wyeth, J. C. Leyendecker and John E. Sheridan.

Glance through this couple hundred covers, running from 1910 to 1971, and let America's past wash over you. There are nearly 100 Norman Rockwells in the mix.
Enjoy.

Glenn Buttkus