Wednesday, December 4, 2013

65 Years Ago

In 1948 I was working at Gray, Garfield, Lang art studio in Detroit, the paintings that I did for Ford Times Magazine while I worked at Allied Artist were getting a lot of attention from Detroit art directors. I began to receive national ad assignments from the larger ad agencies. I just found a copy on eBay of the 1949 General Motors Annual Report for which I was assigned to paint the cover. GM was starting to build the Tech Center and they wanted me to a rendering of what it would look like when finished. I signed the painting, but they sent it back and wanted the signature removed, a disappointment. GM1949Cov Below are a couple of my paintings for Ford Times. I started doing work for them when I was 19 years old. FordTime1 FordTimes2

3 comments:

Tris Mast said...

Beautiful annual report. Do you remember if you were working with aerial photos for reference?

Harry Borgman said...

Hi Tris, The place was just starting to be built so I had to draw it up from a plan. I'm not sure if they ever built that building in the lake.
Harry

Harry Borgman said...

Hi Tris, I just checked the internet for a plan of the Tech Center and that building in the lake was never built. At the time that i painted the illustration they wanted to show that building.
Harry