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Beer In Art #114: Sam Rigling’s Crying In His Beer

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art-beer
This week’s work of art is by American artist Sam Rigling, who it appears is from around Shreveport, Louisiana. The title of the painting is Crying in His Beer.”

Rigling-crying-in-his-beer

There’s not much information about Rigling, or the painting. The Fine Frame Gallery has the following:

Many of Rigling’s paintings exhibit an undercurrent of humor depicting small fragments of the “human comedy.” Scenes in his paintings often depict bar scenes, conversation or parties. He has participated in many one-man and group shows, winning many honors and fans. Galleries throughout North America have represented Sam. Fine Frame Gallery has been selling his work for over 15 years and is pleased to represent such a fine artist. His paintings are in collections in Canada, the U.S., Japan, and Europe.

And here’s one of his many paintings depicting scenes in bars, this one’s titled One For the Road.

Rigling-one-for-the-road

You can see a few more of Rigling’s paintings at the Fine Frame Gallery and Nader’s Gallery.

Beer In Ads #218: Why Is This Fabacher Smiling?

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ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is for a failed brand from the Jackson Brewery in New Orleans, Louisiana — better known as Jax Brewery. In what I believe began in the late 1960s, Jax launched a brand called Fabacher and had ads with a fake “Andrew Fabacher” who supposedly looked like Andrew Jackson, which is who the brewery had been named for. The brewery was founded in 1890 by Alsatian German immigrant Lawrence Fabacher. It stayed in business during Prohibition by making root beer, other soft drinks and near beer. “By the late 1930s it was sold in all of Louisiana, and parts of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.” In 1964, they renovated the brewery and became the “10th largest single-plant brewery in the country, brewing nearly 450,000 barrels of beer annually, [also] making it the largest independent brewery in the South” at that time. The beer ultimately failed and the brewery closed in the mid-1970s. The brewery location is today a shopping mall.

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Beer In Ads #45: Dorothy Dandridge For Jax

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ad-billboard
It’s not just any Tuesday, but Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday — Mardi Gras — so today’s ad is for a New Orleans beer, Jax. It’s a celebrity ad, with actress Dorothy Dandridge hawking Jax Beer. Dandridge was the first African-American woman nominated for an Academy Award and Halle Berry played her in the award winning HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Using the tagline “Get the Light Idea!” That’s followed by “Drink Mellow Jax Beer.” You rarely see mellow used as a positive attribute these days, which is a shame, I think. I’m not sure when this ad is from, though Dandridge passed away in 1965, so it’s most likely it was before then. It was brewed by Jax Brewing Co. until 1956, when the New Orleans’ Jackson Brewing Co. bought the brand and brewed it there (the old brewery is now a shopping mall) until 1974, when Pearl Brewery bought them out. Since 1985, Pabst has owned the brand, but as far as I now, is not brewing it anywhere. Happy Mardi Gras.

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