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Crossroads of Commerce Pennsylvania Railroad Calendar Art of Grif Teller w/ DJ
Crossroads of Commerce Pennsylvania Railroad Calendar Art of Grif Teller DJ The picture show reflections of light.
By Dan Cupper
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Copyright 1992
184 Pages
Contents
Foreword
World's Greatest Highway:
THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD LEGEND12
Main Line to a Career:
GRIF TELLER-THE ARTIST, THE MAN24
A Working Partner:
THE OSBORNE COMPANY44
The Selling of Speed and Security:
PRR'S CALENDAR PROGRAM56
Art Gallery of the Pennsylvania:
THE CALENDAR PAINTINGS76
All Ready to Go:
GALLERY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN148
A New Day:
THE COMMISSIONED PAINTINGS158
Appendix175
Bibliography177
Index179
Railroad art. How does one define it? Some would say that anything as mundane and utilitarian as a train is incompatible with the sensitive and sophisticated discipline of graphic expression. Others, of different mind, would say that railroading is art.
Regardless of opinion and prejudice, railroads and their environment have long been a popular subject for artists. Paintings incorporating trains have been around since the technology of railroading began to evolve in the 1830s. But with the advent of modern photography, most images of trains have emerged from darkrooms and, more recently, on the screens of video sets.
Yet a coterie of artists still records images of steel and steam, tracks and trains, with brushes applying pigment to paper and canvas. These painters are often moved by their own fascination with the strange mechanical beauty that a machine can emit. Even those modern photographers who are not particularly enamored of railroads find trains a surprisingly satisfying subject for their lenses because of the railroad's linear nature; trains, they point out, have built-in perspective and depth.
Whether on canvas, film, or plastic tape, the railroad has amassed a huge archive of images during its relatively brief 160-year history. A few artists have even gained fame because of their railroad work. Photographers William Henry Jackson, L.C. McClure, and William H. Rau, and painters Otto Kuhler and Howard Fogg, are examples. As fine as their work is, perhaps none is as distinctive-and therefore timeless-as that of Grif Teller.
Teller's work is unique because of a confluence of factors contributing to his final product. First, his Pennsylvania Railroad calendar pictures are commercial art, conceived as a vehicle to help market a company and its services. Second, his early training and therefore his artistic strength lies in landscapes, so the commercial approach was mated with a fine-art setting that incorporated rural scenes. And third, his subject was a railroad company that, at the height of its influence and power, was imbued with an unselfconscious pride that had no rival. The famous Pennsy slogan, "The Standard Railroad of the World," made no pretense of corporate modesty.
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