These black and white Gilette adverts from 1946, 1950 and 1952 look like they are rebuilt newpaper ads, although I have never come across them in any paper. I used to think they were by Lou Fine, but more research has shown that this was in fact a regular account from Elmer Wexler.
I just couldn't believe I hadn't seen these before, so I went back and found at least some of them. This series ran from 1946 to 1952, probably twice a week. I still have to have a look at 1945. Lou Fine did the weekly Spirit while Will Eisner was in the army, until late 1944. So he wouldn't have started his work as a commercial artist after that. I never took these for Lou Fine's, because they are nowhere as slickly inked as his better samples. But he did have a partner, who supposedly did little more than sell his tuff. But he may have chipped in as an artist as well, which would explain the lesser look of these. Now that I have had a better look at them, they do have some of the telltale faces and poses of Fine's work, so I don't think it is the work of an imitator.
Although... I went back a bit earlier and found samples for 1945 and 1944, with the earliest one in 1941. This seems to indicate Fine was not involved and the similarity is a coincidence. I also found a laer one for 1953, which I added.
1 comment:
Ger Apeldoorn,
Gillette (nowadays belongs to Procter & Gamble) always was a sports-related brand, with a whole line of shaving products (shavers, shaving blades, shaving creams, shaving foams and post-shaving balms). It was a FIFA partner between 1978 and 2006. And nowadays Gillette makes partnership with the International Olympic Commitee (IOC) and the Brazil's soccer (football association in Europe) team.
And I'm a loyal consumer of the Gillette products.
And, among the sports stars who are spokepersons from Gillette at the last years, including: Kaká, Roger Federer, Thierry Henry, Tiger Woods, Bruno Senna and Paulo Henrique Ganso.
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