Western Post-War Illustration with Dwayne Bell.

Today's lecture was interesting, we looked at Post-War America, how it was portrayed as this ideal almost perfect land. America profited greatly from the war seeing a boom in the economy and a rise of consumerism.  It  was also a time where Atomic power was viewed as the future- films, comics and more art work produced in this era reflected upon this, as it often depicted nuclear weapons and use of them.

We also looked briefly at how different Britain was during this era- you had America with it's booming economy and on the other hand you had Britain, looking grim, and struggling with its massive debt to America- which was only fully repaid in 2006! America was free of any debt and also free of any damage to its infrastructure or society. There were also $26 billion worth of factories that had been built during the war and in as if things couldn't get any better for them, there was $140 billion in savings and war bonds to be spent.
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Post War America also saw the beginnings of youth culture starting to form. Illustration often reflected upon this with depictions of Utopian imagery. During this era, I was shocked to see that illustrators were paid a fortune for single or double page spreads in magazines, now in today's day and age that's not the case!! 

The artist that stood out the most for me in today's lecture was Norman Rockwell. His work is beautifully detailed and can convey a whole story just from the work itself due to the careful detailing in his paintings. The works that made Rockwell famous depicted all sorts of Americans going about their lives. He showed them experiencing both daily travails and simple pleasures. His works were reproduced on magazine covers in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—and their appeal was immense. By the 1940s, Time magazine had already christened Rockwell as “probably the best-loved U.S. artist alive,” while the New York Times had affectionately compared his paintings to Mark Twain’s novels.