Tuesday’s ad is for Genesee Beer from an ecologically-minded 1967. Half the ad shows an idyllic woodland stream setting held out as the perfect place to enjoy a couple of cans of Genesee Beer with the text “Enjoy it here ….” The other half shows a trash basket with a sign on it; “drop it here” and “American the Beautiful” at the bottom.
Monday’s ad is for Falstaff from 1967, and shows two couples on a beautiful beach, with a can of Falstaff where the sun should be. “What a time for a Falstaff,” indeed. I want to be on that beach.
Our 53rd Guinness poster by John Gilroy is quite a simple one, showing a tilted half-empty glass of Guinness with the slogan “Guinness is good for you.”
Friday’s ad is for Carling Black Label, from the Mabel years (most likely the 1950s) and features the wooden tiles from the game of Scrabble. They spell out “Nothing so good for good company.”
Thursday’s ad is from 1940 and is for Budweiser. The ad’s tagline is “Their Hero Arrives on the Next Bus,” and shows two young children standing by a fence eagerly awaiting the arrival of their “daddy” home from work. Read the ad copy on this one, it’s pretty hilarious. And check out at the bottom their “Make This Test” in the center box. “Drink Budweiser for five days. On the sixth day, try to drink a sweet beer. You will want Budweiser’s flavor thereafter.” Or maybe not.
Wedneday’s ad is for Baltimore’s National Bohemian Light Beer. It ran in Life magazine in 1959. The tagline is a mouthfull: “From Chesapeake Bay land of pleasant we bring you this quality beer.” And from the insets at the bottom, the Chesapeake Bay area was also the “land of fun,” the “land of history,” and the “land of good food.”
Tuesday’s ad is for Canada’s Labatt’s 50 Ale, which was “Canada’s fastest growing ale because it has “spirit.” I’m not even sure what that means. Perhaps you get “spirit” by sailing? I’m not sure what this was done, it has a 1950s look and the illustration is great, I just don’t get the connection.
Monday’s ad is one of the first advertising canned beers, in honor of the anniversary of the first beer can being sold today in 1935. It’s for Krueger’s Cream Ale, the first beer to be sold in a can. They tested the package in Richmond, Virginia, far from their native New Jersey in case the test went poorly to avoid any damage to the brand in their home market.
This week’s work of art by one of the modern world’s most famous artists, Pablo Picasso. The painting is known as Le Bock (“The Beer”), but it’s real title is “Portrait of Jamie Sarbartes, the Poet.” Picasso painted it in 1901 and today it hangs in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
The Pablo Picasso Gallery describes the painting like this:
This is sometimes called Le Bock (The Beer) or simply Portrait of Sabartes; but Picasso himself insisted on ‘the poet’ as part of the title. There was a hint of irony in this as a description of Sabartes, and the painting undoubtedly presents him in an exaggeratedly soulful, glamorous light.
According to Sabartes, it was painted not long after his arrival in Paris from Spain (October 1901). He was sitting alone in a tavern, in a state of myopic isolation and boredom, until Picasso and some companions suddenly burst into the room and cheered him up. A few days later, in Picasso’s studio, Sabartes was shown this painting, which he recognized as portraying ‘the spectre of my solitude’. It is arguably the first work of Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’, characterized not only by all-pervasive blue tones but by a preoccupation with suffering, rejection and poverty.
There’s a biography of Picasso at Wikipedia and also Biography.com. You can also see more of Picasso’s art at Olga’s Gallery, ArtArchive and the ArtCyclopedia. Then there’s Picasso.com and his “official” website.
Our 52nd Guinness poster by John Gilroy shows a farm scene with bossy racing the farmer to the tractor, where a Guinness bottle and pint glass is there for the taking. It uses the tagline “My Goodness My Guinness.”
