The original painting for this book cover (Flight From Natchez, by Frank G. Slaughter, released in 1956 by Perma Books) showed up out of the blue for sale on Craig’s List a few years ago. Before I could act on it (to find out more or get ahold of a good image), it disappeared and has not resurfaced. They had it listed under the title ” Deep South Romance,” and the description was equally racy. They did not have the benefit of knowing the actual book title for which my father created the work, but even so, the subject matter is clearly of people in distress. It doesn’t seem remotely romantic to me!
My father did so many book cover and album cover illustrations during the 1950’s and ’60’s. Unfortunately, I have only a few of the originals. It was an unwritten rule of the business that, in exchange for the promise of future work, the artist for hire would give the original to the art director as a present. Crazy, I know, but that was the name of the game at that time. Illustration was a reasonably lucrative and stable profession at that time, so most artists were paid well for their work. However, that doesn’t help their heirs or others interested in their work today. All we can do is jump on trail of information or images whenever they do appear and try to set the record straight.
