"Just Jeepin'" (macintux)
02/15/2020 at 12:05 • Filed to: jeep, willys, world war 2
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"Just Jeepin'" (macintux)
02/15/2020 at 12:05 • Filed to: jeep, willys, world war 2 | 6
| 19 |
As I started !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a fortuitous search for “ Go-Devil” led me down a rabbit hole from which I have yet to fully emerge.
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I stumbled upon a beautifully-illustrated Willys ad in Life Magazine, and started browsing for more. I noticed that the style on the ones I found were similar, and that the style changed after the war.
James Milton Sessions, Morning, Gloucester harbor
When I looked more closely at the wartime ads, I found a signature on the artwork: Sessions. That led me to discover the artist, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
Sessions was widely recognized for his maritime work (he worked as a wheelsman on the Great Lakes before WWI and served in the Illinois Naval Reserve) and military scenes from WWII.
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, Willys’ ads transitioned early in the war from “We make Jeep so you should buy our Americar” to a more indirect sales pitch focused on what Jeeps were doing overseas to help our boys (and the Russians, too).
Two particularly noteworthy aspects to this ad: notice the pre-Ford-reworked grille, and where have we seen “The People’s Car” before?
A happy side effect to this change in focus was the introduction of Sessions’ art.
Sessions’ work for Willys was gorgeous .
I don’t know nearly enough about art to make any observations about the brushwork or colors, but look at the brushwork and colors!
Cropped view of Sessions’ artwork for “Signal Corps Unit Beats Ring of Death”
I’m going to have to spend more time down this rabbit hole, but in the meantime, enjoy what I’ve found so far.
Sessions channeling Rockwell here. I suspect this is the last ad Sessions did for Willys.
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If you’re interested in diving into your own rabbit hole, here are a couple of places to start. As tempting as it is to buy a copy of every Sessions/Willys ad I can find on eBay, I would like to not go entirely broke...
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 12:21 |
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That last one almost looks like a Van Gogh. Those are amazing.
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Just Jeepin'
> ttyymmnn
02/15/2020 at 12:24 |
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I’m definitely going to have to give some thought to collecting all of these.
Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 12:31 |
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Of course 'Jeep' is only a nickname, but one so ubiquitous that they also use it in their advertising.
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Just Jeepin'
> Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available
02/15/2020 at 12:36 |
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If Wikipedia is to be believed, and it makes perfect sense to me, the point of including it prominently in all this advertising was to establish it as a Willys trademark instead of a general-purpose (get it? get it?) nickname.
They applied for the trademark in 1943, but weren’t awarded it until 1950.
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 12:41 |
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A few of those look like Renaissance paintings
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 13:23 |
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What is your source for these? You had a LIFE magazine link the other day, and you can save those full page ads at a pretty decent resolution from there.
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ttyymmnn
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
02/15/2020 at 13:27 |
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Wartime illustrators were very much a thing. Folks on the home front would have been very familiar with this style.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2007/august/combat-artists-guadalcanal
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Just Jeepin'
> ttyymmnn
02/15/2020 at 13:27 |
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Good point; some I found through Life on Google Books , most from eBay. If I can find them scanned through Google, good chance I could print out nice-quality images.
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 13:35 |
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That’s what I was thinking. If you find them on Google Books, you can right-click and select Show Page Source. There will be a folder labeled Images, and you can save them (one at a time) directly to your computer at full size . At least, that’s how it works on my Mac.
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Just Jeepin'
> ttyymmnn
02/15/2020 at 13:43 |
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Unfortunately there’s some dark art to finding full-page views that I have yet to master. When I search directly through books.google.com I get very few hits, and all of them are just snippets.
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 13:52 |
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I went to Google Book and typed Life Magazine. It then gave my a range of years to choose from. I selected December 1941. You get the magazine (or at least most of it), and I found this Nash ad. Right click, Select Page Source, Images folder, and there are a bunch of page images called simply “content.” I scrolled through them and then saved the image that was displayed . It comes down as an unknown file type, but Preview opened it and a simple save made it a JPG.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way to search for specific ads, so you’d have to just leaf through the entire magazine until you found what you’re looking for.
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Just Jeepin'
> ttyymmnn
02/15/2020 at 13:56 |
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Do you have the same experience with Saturday Evening Post? That’s where most of these seem to come from, but I’m not having any luck at all there.
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 14:01 |
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Let me give it a shot. I’ll report back.
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ttyymmnn
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 14:08 |
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It looks like SEP is more heavily locked down. Google Books doesn’t seem to have complete issues scanned, and the books of collected materials, such as Norman Rockwell illustrations, aren’t readily accessible. Did find this , though.
SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
> Just Jeepin'
02/15/2020 at 14:48 |
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That artwork is amazing. don’t see that in modern car ads.
I found one more.... “The Battle For David Tracy’s Backyard”...
fintail
> Just Jeepin'
11/09/2020 at 11:31 |
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That amazing “war art” by Sessions reminds me of someone on the opposing side who did the same, a German by the name of Hans Liska:
He made many paintings (appear to be watercolor) and had several folios published during the war. In peacetime, he became an illustrator for M-B, and was prolific in the 50
s and 60s
:
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Just Jeepin'
> fintail
11/09/2020 at 11:53 |
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Those are so lush. Thanks.
onlytwowheels
> Just Jeepin'
11/10/2020 at 20:18 |
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Just Jeepin'
> onlytwowheels
11/10/2020 at 20:22 |
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That was the one that sent me down the rabbit hole.
https://oppositelock.kinja.com/well-there-goes-my-embiggening-plan-1841679359