Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-05-25
PAINTING BIG SIGNS.
ARTISTS WHO DEVOTE THEIR TALL
EMIT TO ADVERTISING PURPOSES.
Some of Them Have Had Years of
Training In Drawing and Color
Work, and Some Have Studied In
Famous Old World AteIiers.

l some OF Them nave HAD Years OF
Training In Drawing and Color
| Work, and Some Have Studied In
Famous Old World AteIiers.
Although the vivid advertisements of
the excellences of foods, ointments,
clothing, all mechanical appliances
known to man and thousand other
things never dreamed of in the philoso-
| ply of a hundred years ago are contin-
ually catching the eye and possibly
shocking the artistic sensibilities of the
beholder. few of the ordinary observers
give Il moments question to the max
ers of advertisements. The adyertis-
| ing craze has grown Of late to such
huge and unlovely proportions that any
brief account fails TO explain its work
ings. The office of large advertising
concern is one of the busiest places in
| town. Artists are constantly appear
| ing with designs for the firm, small
army of men with paint pots and brush
es are lowering about waiting to be
| sent out, and everywhere are gay evil
| dences of the results of all this labor.
''Who are the men that paint these
heroic pictures one sees on unused
walls and lofty fences;" asked a re-
porter OF one of the men who keeps
these subOrdinates busy.
They are not the people you think
them, fancy" was the answer. I'm
stead OF being daubers, with about the
ability necessary to WELD a wIfitewash
brush. our best men are real artists.
By this 1 mean that many of them
have had years of training in drawing
and color work. Several of them have
studied abroad in the ateliers of we'll
known men. \ man whom 1 saw paint
ing a head on wall yesterday is n
night instructor in a Brooklyn art
school. Recently one of our men paint
ed on a large wall the biggest portrait
ever attempted. He had studied five
years in the Paris art schools"
'Why do they take up this work.
"The other doesn't pay. It's n case
of 'commercialism in art They find
that they can't make the real thing
pay, SO they come to this common
calling. There's money in It. Why.
our star painters get $50 week. The
daubers, who put in backgrounds,
don't earn more than $40 or SIS
week"
The men who paint the designs in
various inaccessible and conspicuous
places have with them small copies
OF the designs TO be reproduced. Long
experience makes them expert in ac-
curately tracing the design upon the
chosen surface. Although the familiar
advertisements scattered over the city
seem exactly alike and one face seems
the exact counterpart of another, yet
closer inspection will show various
points of difference. In the case of a
very familiar picture which is display
ed from one end OF the United States
TO the other. when it was first brought |
out one man was hired for the sole |
purpose of painting that one design,
and to do this he Travelled from Maine |
to California.
mot the least of our difficulties"
said the advertising man, sis finding
places to put our signs. We hire men |
who do nothing else but go about and |
obtain permission from owners to put /
up billboards ON their premises. use /
n vacant wall or decorate n fence or a /
roof. 1t needs great tact to do this. /
When there are objections, they must /
be overcome. and after this is done /
the owner often gets the idea that his /
available space is worth thousands of |
dollars to us and to him. The expe-
riences OF advertising men among |
farmers and tramps would make a
mighty interesting book"
why do you say trampsT
"Oh, the tramps are our worst enc
mics. They build fires behind our
billboards and burn them or else tear
them down out OF sheer wantonness."
When asked about the price a blank
brick wall in a conspicuous part OF
New York would bring to its owner if
he let it for advertising purposes, the
advertising man laughed and said he
could not tell that. but he did not mind
saying that he was now paying $4,000
n year rent for a wall in the middle of
the shopping district. This is not an
unusual sum to pay" he added, ''for
such prominent positions"
Advertising firms are liberal sub
scribers to all art magazines, particu-
larly to those French art periodicals
which display the newest drawings OF
the still popular poster. The ideas OF
the foreign artists are taken freely and
converted into gaudy designs for adj
vertising the latest song or a new cigar
without the least compensation, since,
as the advertisers assert, American
ideas are assimilated abroad Just as
Not all the large reproductions of fig
ures and faces on our streets and along
the roof tops are handwork. Many of
them are machine made. By a process
akin to that of making Autographs ma
chimes have been invented to lay the
colors automatically. The finished
product, quite devoid of personality,
presents accurately copy of the work
ing design.-New York Post.