George
S. Eisenberg was a feature illustrator at the Boston Post newspaper
from 1949 to 1954, creating covers and inside story illustrations
for the weekly Boston Post Magazine section.
Eisenberg set up scenes for his illustrations,
calling on friends, relatives, and staff members at the Post,
to be his models. Behind every fiction illustration is yet another
true-life story about the people, whose job-related attire and
props were woven into Eisenberg's art.
In addition to creating covers for the magazine
section, Eisenberg illustrated Dorothy Wilkins Sandborn's weekly
Up Country stories, which appeared in the body of the Boston Post
Magazine. Some readers knew that Eisenberg often used the author
and her family as models in his illustrations of her wonderful,
tongue-and-cheek stories about rural New Englanders. |
Periodically Eisenberg received fan mail from
other readers who thought they recognized local faces in the illustrations.
Little did they know, Eisenberg drew on his immediate circle of
friends, whom he felt fit the characters described by the author.
His illustrations were created in two steps to accommodate the
crude newspaper printing process of the time. First he submitted
a black line drawing to the paper. A reproduction of the outline
was then returned for a final color overlay.
The following images were obtained by scanning the actual newspapers,
dating back to the 1940s and 1950s. Many of Eisenberg's original
paintings, minus the mastheads, are still available upon request. |
