Advertising the Future: Illustrations by Arthur Radebaugh

Arthur Radebaugh was born in Coldwater, Michigan in 1906.  He developed his interest in art and briefly attended the renowned Art Institute in Chicago.  It was there that Radebaugh first began experimenting with airbrush painting, a technique he helped popularize and used throughout his career.

One of his first clients in 1935 was MoToR Magazine, which purchased a painting for $450 and used it for the highly coveted cover of the Annual issue through 1957.  With the exception of years 1941-1946, he designed covers for every Annual issue through 1957.  Radebaugh’s artistic vision of the future fell in line with the forward-thinking nature of the automotive trade shows that the Annual issues were published to coincide with.

His paintings drew heavily upon the art deco movement of the 1920s through the 1940s, though his style would evolve with the passage of time.  His renderings of the future were inspired by the context of his present.

Radebaugh’s work with MoToR garnered him widespread attention, and his list of clients grew to include several big-name brands including the Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, Coca-Cola, and United Airlines.  The automotive industry also took note, with Chrysler contracting him to do artwork for their 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner sales literature and advertisements.  For the marque’s 25th anniversary, Radebaugh blended the present with the future by painting the 1939 model year cars in front of lush science-fiction-inspired cityscapes.  These are shown in images two and three of this blog post.