MOTOR COVER ART BY ROBERT ROBINSON
oday it seems that any vaguely affectionate depiction of American life in the pre-war period must be described as ‘Rockwellian’, but before Norman Rockwell came Robert Robinson, who began producing humorous slice-of-life cover illustrations for around 1910. His art was a little, and his relationship with the magazine continued until his death in 1952. This piece, currently available at The Illustrated Gallery in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, was produced for the cover of the February 1931 issue of , and shows a farrier and his elderly pal having a good laugh at a Duryea, one of the very first automobiles sold in America. ‘That’ll never catch on,’ they appear to be saying!
