Cover cartoon for the Saturday Evening Post of 15 September 1956.
Thornton Robyn Utz was an American illustrator, cartographer and cartoonist. Today he is best remembered for his graphic work in The Saturday Evening Post during the 1940s and 1950s. Most of his cartoons featured romanticized scenes of suburban life in the United States, often involving transportation. His work is interesting for comic fans and historians too, because his gags are often told in three narrative sequences.
Early life and career
Thomas Robyn Utz was born in 1914 in Memphis, Tennessee as the son of a craftsman of German descent. Utz' father specialized in fixing horse carriages. When automobiles became more prominent, he changed his job to fixing car upholsteries. Both gave young Utz a lifelong fascination for vehicles. The boy was about 12 years old when he made his first drawings. One of them was a comic strip which he shared with all other children in his neighborhood. In high school Utz met Euclid Shook, a man who'd become his creative partner for the next following years. Even before graduation in 1933 they were already co-creating illustration work for advertisements and for boards to be exhibited at fairs and carnivals. Utz went to the Academy of Art in Chicago for a year, but couldn't continue, because he didn't have enough money. But it didn't matter, as he already had a steady income from illustration and school didn't teach him anything new.
Biographical text comic about composer Edvard Grieg, scripted by Anne Healy Marks. Portuguese-language version from the Brazilian magazine O Tico-Tico, 1939.
Utz was part of The Chicago Gang, a group of illustrators who worked in a minimalist style. In 1939 he created a biographical text comic about the life of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, of 'Peer Gynt' fame. The comic was written by Anne Healy Marks and appeared in Portuguese translation in the Brazilian magazine O Tico-Tico. It is unknown in which U.S. magazine this particular comic previously appeared.
Cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, respectively 2 October 1953 and 12 May 1956.
The Saturday Evening Post
Today, Thomas Robyn Utz is best known for his graphic contributions to The Saturday Evening Post, for whom he worked from 1944 on. He created many cartoons for them, 45 of which were used on the cover. Utz' style is comparable to Norman Rockwell. Just like him most of his illustrations depict everyday life in the American suburbs. Like most media from the 1940s and 1950s, the imagery is happy, romanticized and carefree. But contrary to most of his colleagues, Utz put a strong emphasis on his childhood love for vehicles. His characters are often driving a car, traveling by bus, streetcar or train or waiting for their transport to come along. Another thing that set him apart as a cover illustrator is the use of sequential illustrations. Most cartoonists who used this comic strip format were usually relegated inside the issue's pages. Utz occasionally created one-panel cartoons too, but on the front page a remarkable amount of cartoons look like a page from a gag comic. They typically tell their joke in a vertical sequence of three wide images. Since all gags are communicated visually, Utz could be categorized as a pantomime comic artist.
Later life and death
Apart from the Saturday Evening Post, Utz also created advertising illustrations for multinationals like Ford, General Electric and Coca-Cola. Later in his career he founded a cartography company, but sold his business to spend the final years of his life as a portrait painter. Two of his most famous clients were U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco. Thornton Utz passed away in 1999 at the age of 85.
Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, 10 September 1949.