John Ford Clymer
Ice Boating (1959)
Oil on Board, 30” x 28”
Long Island’s East End shares a cherished coastal-winter pastime, iceboating, with its neighbors across the sound in Connecticut — which is where this month’s East magazine cover artist, John Ford Clymer, lived while producing an unequivocally American collection of artwork that today sings nostalgia in every brushstroke.
Working in oils, Clymer (1907–1989) illustrated some 80 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, making him an approximate contemporary of Norman Rockwell. Clymer’s covers often depicted New England towns, pastures, schoolhouses, and churches and had titles like Roadside Vegetable Stand, Children With Rowboat, and Snow on the Farm. In other words, relatable content.
This painting, titled Ice Boating, appeared on the cover of the Nov. 28, 1959, cover of the Post. It comes to us by way of the Illustrated Gallery, a collection into which lovers of art risk getting completely lost to the spirit of beloved bygone eras (visit illustratedgallery.com at your own risk).
In addition to his magazine work across America and Canada, Clymer produced commercial illustrations for White Horse Scotch Whisky, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Chrysler. While he was not a South Fork salt, Clymer did show paintings at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill in June of 1961 in a group show meant to further the cause of conservation.
John Ford Clymer’s America may be gone, as is most of the ice, but maybe this year we’ll have ice again on Mecox and Georgica, as we did last January. A winter’s hope springs eternal.