Several years ago, after my father's death, I
inherited a collection that my grandmother had compiled over the years
-- a series of covers, and a few inside pages, of The Saturday Evening
Post, from the 1930s into the 1960s. Many of these covers
are original Norman Rockwells.
Rockwell, as you may know, was an American
illustrator who had a talent for capturing characteristic though idealized
scenes of American life. I've seen in this collection what I believe to be
many of the "set piece" images Nabokov may have been inspired by as
"starting points for his own ironic, and more realistic view of American life,
with all its commerciality, its ever-present subtext of eroticism, particularly
of girls, and male figures who were recognizeable American types, drawn up
to rather heroic proportions.
I'm going to be looking through this box of covers
shortly, in order to have some framed as prints for family members and friends,
and will keep in mind the print advertisement Nabokov refers to. Nabokov also
refers often to popular American photographic images from the original, and
very-good- for-its-kind, American family illustrated news magazine, Life
-- I mean the original Life, not the present revived but inferior
publication
I've seen several ad illustrations of disheveled
but handsome hubbies with breakfast trays in this collection, and will give you
the brand name of the product if I run across it. Companies often
have much of their advertising archived, and you may be able to obtain
a print, if it's from a company that maintains a good public relations
staff.
Unfortunately, since the American economy was
hijacked by executives who felt they needed seven and eight figure salaries,
some of the first departments and staff to be cut were the corporate library and
archive personnel. These departments were "overhead," and when operating budgets
are slashed, they are usually among the first to go -- and decades of
advertising images are dumped into the trash.
AB
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