Arthur C. Bade
The forsaken history of an artist illustrating our national mood, in a past era of optimism and technofuturism
It began … with a tweet about a mystery. (And quickly led to two more mysteries!)
Mystery 1: In what year was this magazine published?
What’s your own best guess? In what year did Popular Mechanics feature this illustration on its June cover?
The serious guesses offered in response to Alan Levinovitz’s tweeted question ranged from 1922 through 1963, although most were clustered in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. (My own was 1957.)
The 25 cent cover price offers some clues. As does its subject: a sleek, aerodynamic diesel locomotive at the head of a long freight train, gliding through the desert. With a crewman waving out of the train’s cab to a sombrero-clad man, riding in an ox-drawn cart by the side of the track, as if sending greetings from the modern, sparkling, fast-moving era to a slower, more traditional time in the past.
Two people mentioned the Art Deco style of the train car’s front and the text font used on the cover, which might date it in the 1930s or early 1940s. Also Steve Gaudet – while guessing a 1936 cover date – sagely observed “the tone seems optimistic so guessing after the worst of the great depression.”
According to Levinovitz, this cover graced Popular Mechanics’ issue of June 1941. In a reply to his “guess the year” Twitter thread, Jesse Emspak pointed out that, while diesel engines were introduced as early as the 1920s, they only became common in the post-war years, after this cover was published, but “one would sort of expect [Popular Mechanics] to showcase the latest tech.”
Mystery 2: Who Created this Magazine Cover Illustration?
It’s powerful and gorgeous, for one thing. And perhaps – as with Norman Rockwell’s paintings on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post – its illustrator might be famous, or at least have an interesting life story?
By searching on Google Images, supplying it with a link to this magazine cover image, the illustrator was identified as Arthur C. Bade. (Specifically, Google provided a link to an eBay listing containing a different photo or scan of this magazine cover, which in turn mentioned the artist’s name.)
Mystery 3: What Can We Learn About Him?
I did a bit of digging in online sources. And what I found was both interesting and quite frankly, discouraging.
Despite creating vibrant illustrations for a time in American history when optimism – technological, economic, and social – was breaking out, chronicling that national mood with deft strokes of his brushes, pens, and other artist’s tools, much of Bade’s life appears to have been obscured with the passage of time.
Here’s some of what we do know about his works and life, at least from casual online searching:
In addition to occasionally creating cover art for other magazines, like Popular Mechanics, Arthur C. Bade was a staff illustrator for Science and Mechanics magazine from 1944 to 1955.
Science and Mechanics1, according to Resource Books, was a "popular late 1940s and 1950s magazine that provided information on interesting technological do-it-yourself projects as well as news on "cutting-edge" scientific developments. The magazine usually had bright illustrated covers that contained futuristic and sometimes imaginary images that reflected the popular optimism of the time."Prior to his time at that magazine, Bade’s art graced a number of magazine covers during the 1930s, including at least two 1933 covers of Better Homes & Gardens magazine. These are generally in a different style and color palette (more “cool” colors like green, and fewer “warm” colors) than his later covers for technologically-focused magazines.
He also illustrated at least one book cover, for Science and Mechanics magazine’s 192-page “Model Craft Handbook” published in 1952.
In a 1940 publication by the National Art Institute of Chicago in celebration of National Art Week, there's a long, multi-page list of “Artists of Chicago and vicinity.” Among them, on page 11, there is an entry for an Arthur C. Bade, with an address (presumably work, although perhaps residential) at 540 N. Michigan [Avenue] in Chicago.
There is a granite grave marker in All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, in the New York City borough of Queens, bearing the name Arthur C. Bade, with birth and death years of 1899 and 1975, respectively.
As shown in a volunteer-provided photo on the BillionGraves website, the marker is somewhat askew from its foundation. And at the time the photo was taken, there were some small branches lightly covering it.
I don’t know with absolute certainty that this grave marker is for the same Arthur C. Bade, the artist whose work was most publicly notable during the 1930s through 1950s, but it seems highly plausible. (The birth and death years on this marker also match those in the Author field for one of Arthur C. Bade’s illustrations on Wikimedia Commons, as entered by Wikimedia contributor Michael Holley.)
There is another name on the marker, that of Lenore Bade Keimel, with birth and death years of 1946 and 2001, respectively. She, potentially with the full name of Lenore Margaret (née Bade) Keimel, per a private mention on the genealogy website, Geni, may have been Bade’s daughter. (That mention also suggests that Arthur’s full middle name might be “Charles.”)
That’s it. That’s all I was able to find. No obituary, at least one I could find online in non-proprietary, public-facing sources. Not a single blog post or newsletter article about his work. Almost no mentions of him in books, other than a couple notable exceptions below, both occurring in the context of a far more famous person.
No biography, or even a biographical entry, discussing the artwork he created for the magazine at which he worked for over a decade and for other notable magazines of his era. No passionate forum discussions talking about his style and contrasting it with other artists of his time. No speculation on how his bold, vibrant illustrations, extolling technological progress in the 1940s and 50s, contributed to the zeitgeist of that era. Or reflected it perfectly. Or both!
That’s discouraging.
Who’s Been Talking About Him?
There’s a modest number of places you can find Arthur C. Bade’s name mentioned on the modern, searchable web. These consist mostly of an ongoing set of current or past “for sale” listings of magazines with his cover art, on eBay and other e-commerce websites. In addition, one can find a small number of relevant posts on the photo-sharing website, Flickr, such as this one. The most intriguing mentions are on the Pulp Covers website, which, alongside pinup “babes” and lurid covers of crime and mystery novels, displays a number of Bade’s cover artworks. And more prosaically, several of his magazine covers can also be viewed via the Internet Archive.
However, these all merely mention his name, rather than discussing the artist or his life. Their focus is on sharing photos or scans of his cover art.
Among the very, very few exceptions:
There are at least two books which may potentially discuss Arthur C. Bade’s work in somewhat more detail, per Google Books. (I wasn’t able to search extensively within the text of either book, online, to find the reference(s) to his name and see how he was discussed there.)
The subject of both these books, Never Leave Well Enough Alone and Streamliner, is the famed French-American industrial designer, Raymond Loewy. John Wall wrote that, “In the latter half of the 20th century” Loewy was “a household name for his practice of applying the principles of what he called “cleanlining” to create starkly memorable designs. … Combining salesmanship and media savvy, he created bright, smooth, and colorful logos for major corporations that included Greyhound, Exxon, and Nabisco. His designs for Studebaker automobiles, Sears Coldspot refrigerators, Lucky Strike cigarette packs, and Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives are iconic.”
The most likely reason for Bade being mentioned in these two books about Loewy? It’s this: for the August 1950 edition of Science and Mechanics, he created a cover illustration of a “Car of the Future.” This hypothetical auto design was conceived by Loewy (and/or by a member of his design team) while heading the department which created styles for the Studebaker Corporation.One of Bade’s works also appeared on the cover of the National Farm Journal in February 1934. Its subject was Augustus St. Gaudens’ famous statue of a standing Abraham Lincoln, in the city’s waterfront Lincoln Park.
A black-and-white version of his full-color art, as retrieved from a scanned microfilm copy in the Internet Archive, is shown here.In the “Odd MENTION” column on p. 34 of that issue, the columnist wrote that, since in February “our thoughts turn naturally to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, and as we had a Washington cover a couple of years ago, here is one to honor the great Emancipator. The subject is the St. Gaudens statue in Chicago, and the artist is Arthur C. Bade of Park Ridge, Ill. You can’t help liking it, we are sure.”
(Park Ridge is approximately 15 miles from Chicago, so if Bade still lived in Park Ridge in the mid-1940s-on, perhaps he commuted into the city for his work on the magazine? Or worked in a home studio and occasionally brought in his design sketches and renderings?)
Again, that’s it: all I was able to find so far.
There’s so much more one might want to know. About his life, for instance: before, during, and after the (roughly) early 1930s to early 1950s period where his covers appeared.
And if one were hypothetically able to speak to him, or more realistically, to ask his descendants who might still be keeping alive stories of this artist and his times, here’s the first question I’d want to ask him – or them:
What did he think of all this?
When he drew flying saucer “buses,” for instance. Did he roll his eyes? Was it “just work”? Or was he caught up in the enthusiasm of a technologically brighter future to come?
According to the Wikimedia Commons entry for Science and Mechanics magazine, that magazine was founded by Hugo Gernsback in or around 1929, originally with the title Everyday Mechanics.
Science fiction author William Gibson’s short story, The Gernsback Continuum, was published in 1981. Per its Wikipedia entry, its title was a nod to “Hugo Gernsback, the pioneer of early 20th century American pulp magazine science fiction.” This story referenced the futuristic, streamlined looks favored by some designers of the 1930s and 40s, as well as the same “technofuture" optimism whose spirit is reflected in Arthur C. Bade’s cover illustrations.
(As an aside, it’s wild how at least two recent posts here have had out-of-the-blue, serendipitous ties back to Gibson, whose short story “Fragments of a Hologram Rose” helped theme this blog.)
This the wrong gravestone. He passed in 1955. His wife's name was Myrtle and 3 children named Tom, Phillip, and Lois.
The man you are speaking of was my great-uncle on my father’s side. I have many of his magazines & in fact, I sat for him for one of the magazines. He died on June 5, 1955.
I also have several of his original paintings in my home. One painting was a gift to my grandparents for their wedding in 1924. He never finished it, but it is hanging over my fireplace.
If you want to contact me, my email is sdpkep@ yahoo.com. I live in Wayne, PA.
Found your article more than interesting! Thank you