A Checkered Past: Indy 500 Program Covers

This 1981 cover featuring the top of the Borg-Warner trophy was the first to use an actual photograph.

The centennial of the Indianapolis 500 is only days away. So while you’re resting up for all that Snake Pit revelry, here’s a selection of official programs from over the years. The National Indy 500 Collector Club has every program with details going back to the Speedway’s pre- 500 races including the first race in 1909, which was a balloon race.

The programs parallel magazine trends, including book thickness and styles of cover design. There are the Art Deco illustrations of the 1930s, those illustrated montages from the 1980s, foldouts, and the requisite hologram cover. The program prices, which are prominently displayed on the covers through 2000, climb through the years from ten cents on up!

Upper left, program from the first 500 in 1911. Upper right, 2001 hologram-cover. At bottom is a foldout from 2009 by the renowned artist Thomas Kinkade.

Most of these are on eBay right now, where prices can go as high as $250.

1919
In celebration of the Allied victory in WWI, the
race was renamed the "Liberty Sweep Stakes."

1930

1931

1935

1936

1938

1946

1951

1956
From 1955 through 1975, this program cover ran
for all but two years.

1976

1979

1982

1988

1990

2003

2011
One of three covers for this year’s race.

The Illustrated Exodus

I’ve tracked down a version of the very traditional Haggadah I remember from my youth, first published by Shulsinger Brothers in 1950. The illustrations by Austrian-born artist Siegmund Forst, depict in realistic detail, scenes of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and various other characters and stories from the Haggadah. When I was a kid, I would pore over these illustrations during the lengthy recitation of the text. I considered them very instructive and I was not bothered in the least by how sentimental they were. I was fascinated that they showed me how it really looked when Egyptian soldiers were swallowed by the Red Sea, and exactly what the Angel of Death looked like (a skeleton with wings and a scythe). It also served as a handy guide to stereotyping men by their appearance.


The Haggadah actually acknowledges that not all children are exactly the same. “The Four Sons” represent four types of children and outlines how to discuss the exodus from Egypt with each type.

Upper right, the wise son (looks a lot like Moses!); upper left, the wicked son; bottom right, the simple son: bottom left, the son who doesn’t even know how to ask a question.


Scenes of the Jews in Egypt: Above, building pyramids. Below, Pharaoh's daughter discovers Moses in his basket in the reeds.

This illustration goes with a “cumulative” type of folk song that’s been around for a few hundred years called Chad Gadya. It’s ostensibly a lively song for children about the fate of a boy’s goat, which his father bought for him. The song describes successive acts of violence that go all the way up the food chain from animals, to man, to the Angel of Death, to God.

Chad Gadya, however, is not merely a simple child’s song. There have been many interpretations of it. Here is what Elie Wiesel has to say about it.

And here we are, concluding the seder with Chad Gadya, a beautiful song, which is not just about a father who buys a goat for his child. It's a song about God's creatures destroying each other. It may be a puzzling way to end the joyous meal but one that is fraught with meaning.

The song of Chad Gadya reminds us that in Jewish history, all creatures, all animals, all events are connected. The goat and the cat, the fire and the water, the slaughterer and the redeemer, they are all part of the story.

And surely it has to be symbolic, for how can a cat eat a goat in the first place?

Finding Colos

The internet, by rendering envelopes and paper datebooks obsolete, has, in effect, eliminated entire categories of creative expression--namely envelope art (see 'mail art') and collage diaries. Ironically, it is thanks to the internet that a master of those art forms, is being rescued from obscurity.

A few weeks ago I came across some very cool original collages and drawings on eBay, attributed to “COLOS,” a mysterious, but familiar name from the past. Many were on envelopes and cleverly incorporated postge stamps, addresses, etc. When I saw among them a piece collaged with foreign currencies about the foreign exchange company Deak-Perera (another mysterious name from the past), I figured it had to be the illustrator whose name I’d heard occasionally at Fortune, many years ago.

Hungarian-born Colos (originally Francois Szalay) was a prolific editorial illustrator in the late 70s, early 80s Working in many media (painting, drawing, collage, etc.) and with a unique view of the world (he came to NYC via Paris via a Communist Gulag), he could always be counted on to come up with a solution when art directors were at a loss for ideas. By the mid 80s editorial illustration had moved in a different direction, and from time to time, I would overhear art directors on the phone, telling him that there was “nothing right now …” Colos died in 1989 at the age of 60.

Since I rarely see original works of art that are so affordable, I decided to buy a few. There were so many incredible pieces that it took me a few days to narrow down which ones to buy. Luckily, I was more decisive than usual and managed to snag a few when I did. Because a week later, wanting to introduce a friend to his work, I went back to eBay and his work was completely gone. I then found out that everything had been bought by a private collector.
In the mean time, illustrators Stephen Kroninger and Victor Juhaz, (whose work you’ve seen whether you know it or not) also found Colos on eBay. Here is the amazing account written by Victor Juhaz, who knew Colos, that Stephen posted on his Drawger blog, along with the images.

Colos was a fascinating person, probably one of the most fascinating I've known in my life, and like most Hungarians, very Magyar centric, ego driven, brilliant and utterly opinionated, and of course, right. Endless stories, all memorable and better than fiction. He was a young man around 19 when he found himself spending a number of years in the Communist prison system, the Gulag, working in coal mines. He was also pretty inflexible and combative when it came to dealing with art directors and didn't have all that much good to say about them and the restrictions placed on his points of view in his work. Considering how bright his star had shined in the 50's the 60's through the 70's, even into the 80's, near the end of his life he would confess to feeling at a sort of dead end with regard to how to deal with editorial interference and seemed to imply that he didn't see much future in his career. His uncompromising attitude to his work and how it was to be displayed in a perverse way worked against him in that he is pretty much unknown to present generation graphic artists and students, which is a true loss in terms of what his work has to offer. His work was almost always engaging because it was very smart, very funny in a satiric way; the collages beautifully composed and logical even as they could be wild.

He started a visual diary in 1976 that developed quite a notorious reputation because of the content matter. In 1986 a museum was offering to exhibit the diary but with certain content edited because of the potential offensiveness. Colos was adamant about how to exhibit the work and declined the museum's offer. "They either accept it as it is or go to hell." When I read that in a PRINT magazine feature on him and his envelope collages, it sounded just like him. "Bullshit" was another favorite phrase.

Coming out of the brutalities and intrigues of the Communist system he also seemed to have developed an adaptive, very self protective, way of presenting himself to the people he knew. The Colos I knew may not have necessarily been the Colos others knew. He was careful about how and what to reveal about himself. This realization came later after his passing, talking to friends and noticing that we all had parts of a story but never the whole. Even after we pieced our versions together, there was an uncertainty about whether it was complete or even misleading.

He once told me about standing on a corner in NYC near Carnegie Hall right next to Count Basie. He turned to the Count and said, "It is because of you that I have one kidney." Basie looked at him confused and asked him to explain. Colos went on to tell him what a great fan he was of Jazz and how he was listening to Basie records in his apartment when (somebody must have ratted him out) the secret police broke in, confiscated the music, and took him down to the station where he was beaten so badly that one of his kidneys was ruptured. Then it was off to prison/the Gulag(?) for subversive activities. Basie listened to this and when the story was finished, said to Colos, "Let me buy you a drink." So they went to a nearby bar and had a few and talked some more. You can't make this shit up. And he had tons of stories like this. Every so often I think of him and miss those lunchtime conversations we would have either in the NEW YORK TIMES cafeteria or at a favorite hangout, a Brazilian restaurant not far from the TIMES, where I would join my friend John Cayea, the art director for the Week-In-Review and another brilliant Hungarian artist illustrator, Istvan Ventilla and the Romanian illustrator Nicolai Ascui. Those get togethers were head spinning events- John and I would just sit back and listen to the world explained from an Eastern European, Iron Curtain survivor, viewpoint. Ventilla has since disappeared, without a trace; it's been a long time since anything has been heard from or about him.

To see more envelope pieces and in a larger size go to Stephen Kroninger’s post. The following images are diary pages. There’s a website for The Diary, where you can see many pages. You can also order Francois Szalay - COLOS, THE DIARY, 1976 from Amazon.

Fortune's Glorious Infographic Past

At long last, the article I wrote for Print based on my lecture about the amazing infographics Fortune published during the first half (1930-1970) of its 80-year existence.

A number of years ago, I was invited to give a presentation at Malofiej, the Society of News Design's worldwide infographics conference held each year in Pamplona, Spain. At the time, I was Fortune’s graphics editor and had always wanted an excuse to subject myself to going through every issue of the magazine and document its use of charts, diagrams, maps, etc. Talk about falling down the rabbit hole! Of the few hundred images I collected, some 80 went into the presentation, and 18 of those appear in this article.

I still like to imagine that I will do the book one of these days, but size is a real issue. Unlike the early spectacular Fortune covers that are legible even when reproduced as thumbnails (there weren’t even cover-lines in those days), the infographics are often readable only at the original print size. Each page was 11" by 14" in the early days, and many graphics ran as full spreads and with tiny labels. Sumptuous and gorgeous, but not very iPhone-friendly, or even iPad-friendly for that matter. I just can’t see an 8" by 10" format doing justice to the ‘Financial Irrigation of the United States’ (second spread, below), and I’m not sure I can handle being laughed out of the office of any publisher still in business. The research (in my best Cowardly Lion voice) is done ...


The body text should be readable when you click on the pages to enlarge.

Primping for Day of the Dead

Illustrator and comics artist Ann Decker had enough foresight to leave the country before the Tea Party comes into power. She lives in Mexico now. Here are two paintings she has in a show for Día de los Muertos. I’m glad to see that Ann hasn’t totally forgotten NYC. She seems to have recalled Manhattan’s social x-rays perfectly.

Check out Ann's website to see more of her work.

The Dogs of Will Rannells (And a Contest!)

Somewhere between Cassius M. Coolidge’s Dogs Playing Poker and William Wegman’s elegant and complex Weimaraners, lie Will Rannells’ canine men of the world.
“What's on the 6th floor?” a history and special collections blog of The San Francisco Public Library, recently featured these Life magazine covers (not to be confused with LIFE, the Henry Luce publication), by Rannells (1892-1982).

Early on, Rannells found that his paintings of dogs set him apart from other artists. It is reported that he thought they were much better subjects than the beautiful girls he had previously been drawing. In fact, his first commercial success (at age 19) was a portrait of a collie that had previously been held in the arms of a girl. When he realized the dog was better off without the human figure, he painted the dog alone and sold it for $40. It later appeared on the June 1, 1912 cover of Country Gentleman. He went on to illustrate for the magazines Life, Judge and McCalls, as well as for a number of children's books.

Will Rannells became an art professor at The Ohio State University, where he taught painting and advertising design. He was active in the Humane Society and was known locally for his efforts to rescue stray animals and for his opposition to vivisection.”

To truly acknowledge the dog days of summer you must head over to Newmanology and partake of, either as a participant or an observer The Newmanology Dog Days of Summer Dog Magazine Cover Contest. There is already a fantastic gallery up, with new additions coming in fast and furious. Add your canine contestant to the mix. Still needed: a bejeweled lady-dog (not just any bitch with bling, must be canine).




Will Rannells covers (starting from the top): "Putting on the Dog," Life (Nov. 3, 1927);
"The Dog Star,"Life (July 16, 1914); "R.F.D.," Life (Dec. 16, 1915);
"An Old Sea Dog," Life (Sept. 3, 1925); Country Gentleman (June 1, 1912);
"Never Again," Life (Jan. 15, 1920). Life courtesy Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor; Country Gentleman courtesy Magazines & Newspaper Center, San Francisco Public Library.