Slayton Underhill and the Hat
I know nothing about this illustrator but greatly admire his life's work
which was devoted to the depiction of the hat atop the eligible male.
top left,
a typical Underhill cavalcade of hats on chaps.
top right Douglas Firbanks Jr., promoting the Stetson
Park ($16.50) and incidentally his film The O'Hara October 1948, 23 x
24cms
bottom row Bing Crosby, promoting the Turf Club ($12.50)
and incidentally his film The Emperor Waltz September 1948 23 x 24cms
but he also can be spotted elsewhere....
here in a Gulfpride advert of October 1946
There is a quality of stoniness in imagemaking that confounds the florid
advocator of painterliness. Much of this quality can be found in American
commercial art of the 1950's - a wilful deadness of surface, a heaviness
of gesture and a marvellous concentration on the ordinary - even mundane.See
Rene Magritte for heady exercises in this direction. Slayton Underhill
regularly hones a marvellous talcum surface for beaming males under
snappy brims.
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