This cover is by Ben Shahn, an artist who was deeply uncool even in his own day (the 30s and 40s). Social Realism, isn't that what they called his "school"? He never asked to be part of a school, but the point was that he was overtly leftist and representational at a time when you were supposed to be subversive in much hipper, more abstract ways.
But I have always really dug his drawings. So quirky, so masterful in their off-hand way. And he wrote this great book, The Shape of Content, full of cranky, wise advice for young artists, as well as amusingly skeptical evaluations of Abstract Expressionism and other "contentless" art of the time. A square if ever there was one, but a smart and funny square. Flipping through The Shape of Content now, it seems he must have had a big influence on illustrators. I thought Andy Warhol came up with that inky, calligraphic look you see everywhere these days, but maybe it was Shahn. What, am I historian? No, I am not.
Anyway, he did this cover design for Vintage Books in 1947. Isn't it just super, socko, supremo? I want to marry it.
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PREVIOUS FABULOUS COVERS OF THE WEEK:
The Face of the Ancient Orient
What comes in a box?
The Age of Reason
The Coming of the French Revolution
Andre the Courier
Hide-Out
Brideshead Revisited
The Golden Book Sherlock Holmes
Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, vol. 5
God's Smuggler
Mixology
The Score
The Frazer Acquittal
Wife or Death
Wild Game Cookbook
Crime Patrol No.9
Boy's Choice
The Value of Fairness
Cancelled Japanese Stamps
The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues
Scoop
Barchester Towers
Fathers and Sons
Evil Genius
Early Man in the New World
Camp Craft
The Man in the Net
7 Types of Ambiguity
Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust
The Idea, a novel told in woodcuts
The Simple Art of Murder
History Begins at Sumer, featuring the typography of Edward Gorey
Marvel Spectacular featuring the art of Jack Kirby
The Age of Analysis
Metropolis: An American City in Photographs
Engineering is Like This
The Ponder Heart
Don Martin Digs Deeper
The Golden Book Encyclopedia of Natural Science (Volume 9, Kinglets to Meteor)
The Mountlake Terrace High School 1964 yearbook
Take a Letter: A Cyclopedia of Business & Social Correspondence
The Vice Lords: Warriors of the Street
Islam and The Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia
Munakata
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Fabulous book cover of the month