Shade Tree

A job at a local printmaking workshop in his hometown of Moline, Illinois, set the young Richard “Dick” Sargent on a formative path to becoming one of America’s most beloved illustrators. After high school, he went on to study at the art school in Moline, and he later trained at the Corcoran School of Art and the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C. Sargent specialized in images that capture the humorous side of American daily life. The idiosyncrasies and imperfections of Sargent’s own family dynamics--including the antics of his three sons--provided inspiration for some of the nearly 50 covers he created for The Saturday Evening Post, as well as illustrations for Fortune and Woman’s Day magazines. An acknowledged “master of the pregnant situation,” he delighted in leaving readers speculating on the aftermath of a particular scene, as in the present work published on the cover of the April 12th, 1958 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.