Tigard artist painting cover for relaunch of The Saturday Evening Post

By Christina Cooke

The Times, Apr 16, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jaime Valdez / The Times

WORK IN PROGRESS — Tigard artist Eric Bowman paints an illustration for The Saturday Evening Post in his studio last week. The Post is launching its new design in July and asked Bowman to paint the cover image.

ADVERTISEMENTS

TIGARD — Tigard artist Eric Bowman remembers seeing copies of The Saturday Evening Post strewn about his grandparents’ den during his weekly visits to their house as a child.

In his 20s, he began purchasing old copies of the magazine for the artwork on the front, painted by American greats like J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.

In July, Bowman’s own illustration will appear on the cover of the magazine, in the premier issue of its redesigned format.

“It’s neat to be on the cover of a magazine that my heroes have been on,” he said in his Tigard studio last week.

In an effort to update the magazine and reach out to more readers, The Post will be relaunching its print product and its Web site in July. From then on, each edition will have a theme uniting it and will contain a piece of fiction and an originally illustrated cover.

“We want to keep the wonderful illustrations The Post is so well known for alive and well,” said Editor in Chief Patrick Perry. “We’re inviting in new artists, and using the work of our older illustrators like Norman Rockwell (from the archives), to keep the tradition going.”

The magazine, established by Benjamin Franklin as the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1728, has been published under its current name since 1821.

“At one time, The Post was like USA Today,” said Chris Wilhoite, the magazine’s art director. “It had millions of readers, and it was a weekly people looked to for news. In the present form, a lot of people over the last 20 years probably didn’t realize we were on the newsstand.

“We’re going to work hard on repositioning the magazine to be the voice of the past, present and future,” Wilhoite said.

The art department chose Bowman for the premier issue of the relaunch because they liked his style and the strong color of his work, Wilhoite said.

Bowman, now 48, got his start painting surfboards and designing T-shirts as a high school student in Southern California.

He moved near his mother’s birthplace in the Portland area in 1987, where he began to build a highly successful graphic design career.

Over his 20 plus years in the business, Bowman has produced advertising images for clients including Bacardi, GTE, Hallmark, Hollywood Entertainment, Marriot, Nextel, Nike, Southwest Airlines and Wal-Mart.

1 | 2 Next Page >>