Nice 1954 artist's rendering of an Acme Market, neon blazing at night. Kind of reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s famous painting “Nighthawks”, isn’t it? I mean, except for the setting being a grocery store instead of a café…and the location probably a shopping center instead of a dimly lit downtown street…and a larger group depicted instead of three brooding, lonely patrons and a soda jerk…Ok, let’s forget that comparison.The picture, based on this prototype, does show that by the early 50’s, Acme was moving into larger footprint stores and designing to blend into shopping centers.
Gosh, I love the Nighthawks painting! Years before I even became interested in anything retail related or architecture related or even vintage related that was one of my favorite paintings because my fifth grade teacher had a poster of it in our classroom. I was always in love with it. Maybe it forshadowed the future regarding my hobbies and interests.
ReplyDeleteI could not even tell that the Acme paiting was art. I thought it was an actual photo. It is so lifelike even more livier than Hopper's painting.
The picture is great work, no question about it, and is typical of the superb painted advertising art of the day. A look through the ads in any old Life, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's etc. issue from the 50's shows what amazing artistry showed up every week in something as disposable as a 20-cent magazine. Pretty much a lost art.
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