Not only are my vintage Woman’s Own magazines gorgeous to look at, many of the short stories are illustrated by various well known people. I’ve been surprised by each name that I’ve looked up so far; the sheer amount of work these men produced is staggering!

According to AmericanArtArchives.com Jon Whitcomb gained particular popularity for capturing the essence of couples on love. Perfect then, for a pre-Valentine post.

He was also good at capturing cars, planes and other objects; meaning he produced quite a few posters and advertisements as well as his illustrations for stories.

If you’re interested in these types of illustrations, there’s a really interesting blog here written by Paul Giambarba.

I actually can’t find the magazine I had out originally with a Jon Whitcomb illustration! I’ve got many grand intentions to catalogue them somehow, or at least take some colour photocopies of the best pictures to frame up.

These last few pictures aren’t of couples, but I thought they were too good not to share.

Is that Marilyn Monroe, perhaps?

Possibly my favourite one.

There are hundreds and hundreds of his pictures all over the internet. These are just a few of my favourites of the ones I found. There’s also a lot of information to be found on Whitcomb:

• Jon Whitcomb on Wikipedia
• American Art Archives
• Gorgeous post about his Cosmopolitan work here.