C.G.Evers (dates ?) - The Master of the Philadelphia Skyline.

The Philadelphia Electric Company advertised widely in mass circulation magazines during the 'fifties and 'sixties, and more often than not, used the paintings of C.G.Evers to identify the City of Philadelphia and its surrounding hinterland. I know nothing of the man who does not seem to appear in the usual anthologies of American Illustration.

He demonstrated an unerring sense of compositional balance, sure perspective and a clean harmonic textural range for buildings, water surfaces and human activity. I have amassed about fifty tear sheets of his work and he always delights me. When he appears to share authorship with another hand (doing people or wooded landscapes), you knows who is in charge. Like other illustrators whose work excites me, he establishes a tension between the exact and the nebulous.His clouds are particular worthy of study, his plumes of drifting smoke against the hard surfaces of buildings.

It interests me not a jot that he does nor reflect urban blight.Like other designers of character he creates an individual world that is plausible wherever probed. His employers kept his work going and they must have been pleased. I hope you enjoy his immense gifts.

amended site established June 2006.

Power to Pace the Future, Pennsylvania Railroad, February 1945

 

Grace Lines 1951

Grace Lines 1952