Portraits and Book Covers
Although best known for his Saturday Evening Post covers, Falter also provided illustrations for numerous other publications, including Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, Life Magazine and Look.
Falter was a prolific artist who depicted a wide range of subject matter in a variety of media. As television eliminated many national magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, Falter turned to portrait painting and book illustration. He illustrated over 40 books, and one of his favorite projects was illustrating a special edition of Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years. Other favorite book projects included Houghton-Mifflin's Mark Twain series and illustrations for The Scarlet Pimpernel. His stepson, Jay Wiley, posed for a book Falter illustrated, Me 'n Steve. A final favorite was humorist Corey Ford's The Horse of a Different Color.
Falter produced a body of work impressive in volume and variety of subject. Reflecting a lifelong interest in jazz, he did scenes of Harlem nightclub life in the 1930s, and later on, portraits of famous jazz musicians. An excellent portrait painter, Falter had Clark Gable, James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Admiral "Bull" Halsey among his sitters. Falter was an accomplished jazz clarinet player and entirely self-taught. He took great pleasure in visiting jazz friends he sketched live, only to sit in with them in a set after sketching at clubs such as Eddie Condon's on West 52nd St in New York City.
Read more about this topic: John Philip Falter
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