Artistes

An extraordinary archive of 295 photographs and silver prints and 229 original designs and paintings chronicling the style trends and fashion choices spanning the first seven decades of the 20th century. The photographs reveal the prize-winning window display designs at department stores along with fashion trends for clothing and the marketing of appliances household goods women’s lingerie and sanitary products from before World War I until the Mid-20th Century by Ray Whitnah and later his Display Products Co. in St. Louis Missouri. Many of the original designs created for window displays and window display companies by Whitnah are deeply influenced by Art Deco streamline designs as well as drawing inspiration from John Held Pogo and other significant cartoon and commercial artists.

1897 · 56093 — Cuba IL; Chicago IL Topeka KS & St. Louis MO: Raymond Whitnah Display Products Co. Kaye Whitnah Industrial Designs 1897-1970. Fifteen vols. sized 4to. 9.5 x 12 in. up to Folio. 14 x 17 in. Approx. 1414 pp nearly all unpaginated or unnumbered. including 295 silver gelatin & silver print photographs Polaroid and albumen images sized from 2 x 2 in. up to 13 x 15 in. hand-coloured silver prints the majority of the photographs are tipped-in 8 x 10 in. images into albums with thick black paper stock some linen-backed some are hand-coloured many of the silver print designs have been hand-painted or hand-coloured most on glossy photo stock 1 albumen photo mounted on studio card sized 6 x 12 in. many w/ annotations on versos some w/ captions in lettering below or dittoed and/or mimeographed explanatory texts on versos or mounted below the images; the majority of the silver print designs are mounted on beige or black linen hinges; with four of the photo albums still preserving all or at least have of the original binding covers 2 renewed 1 w/ hand-lettered title page and table of contents; many TLS ALS promotional inserts printed catalogues printed mimeographed and dittoed text several telegrams and all preserved in archival mylar sleeves together with the remainder of the archive. With 229 original designs paintings pen & ink pencil and water-coloured drawings artist’s renderings blueprints cyanotype blue-prints ranging in size from 6 x 8 in. up to 17 x 38 in. some framed by studio board others mounted on glossy paper stock and a significant portion on tinted paper stocks of gray brown taupe and tan some loose and others mounted with linen hinges most having either the Display Products Co. printed at lower fore-edges or printed in the explanatory texts below or on versos with some signed by artist at lower edge of the image occasional soiling creasing lifting & chipping to fore-edges of some renderings others with minor creasing or curling still nearly all bright and all preserved in post-binders or portfolio cases with stamping on covers. This incomparable archive of photographs and original advertising art was created by Ray Whitnah his company Display Products Co. and later his son Kaye Whitnah who were innovative commercial artists and industrial designers through the Jazz Age Great Depression World War II and the post-War era. Ray Whitnah’s displays incorporated life-like scenes wax models and often inventive display apparatus and mechanical elements incorporating stunning Art Deco graphics and story telling all heavily influenced by the displays of L. Frank Baum Ernst Goldsman and Gordon Selfridge pioneering window display artists at Marshall Field in Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century. The first volume includes prize-winning letters for displays across the Midwest for the Pugh Store Co. department stores and later for Crosby Bros. Co. department stores in Topeka KS incorporating photos documents announcements and trade journals. Photographs in the second volume reveal how Whitnah created striking sales tableaux for women’s furs hosiery girdles bathing suits Hoover Vacuums Motorola heaters and kitchen ware. Of special interest are the surrealist bathing suit windows superimposed behind a reverse painted clock face featuring undersea flower & shell arrangements and large sea snail. Other images show striking windows for Kotex Sanitary products DeFildiss Perfumizer Eline’s candies and apple bars Nemo-Flex Corsettes Phoenix Hosiery and others. Volume III entitled the “Championship Class†album provides a superb overview of Whitnah’s prize-winning displays including an elaborate Chinese rugs window with Chinese mah jong players; Pyrex ware window featuring four & 20 blackbirds flying from the pie; a mechanical bathing display; toy display featuring paraffin falls imitating frozen water; an elaborate Congoleum flooring display; and his tour-de-force mechanical Nemo Corset Display featuring a large turntable revolving with women’s figures representing seven ages appearing in order within four minutes per revolution and a ribbon to pull the layered photos to recreate the effect in the album. The fourth album incorporates inventive millinery and women’s fashions in minimalist vignettes for the Crosby Bros. Department store with some incorporating Moorish or Oriental inspired designs vivid Art Deco backdrops and historiated scenes reflective of the fashions in the opening years of the Roaring 20s. The fifth volume reflects the increasing creativity and daring of Whitnah including window displays showing flying Hoover vacuums increased storytelling and elaborate displays for Christmas Radiola record players an elaborate fairy tale scene for Hickock belts Maytag washers featuring backdrop of children dancing around the Maypole and series of Santa Fe RR windows celebrating travel on the Honeymoon. Of particular interest in this album is the large elaborate Kotex Sanitary Specialties window entitled “Kotex: A “Justice†to the World†featuring a lady justice on top of a globe Kotex packaging balanced in the scales and other products displayed around the window.The sixth & seventh albums mark the 1930 shift by Ray Whitnah to establish not only his own manufacturing company for window display fixtures and apparatus but also an Automotive Displays Inc. intending to target the burgeoning window display market with automobile dealers across the country producing lithograph posters newspaper camera ready ads catalogues along with flood lights backgrounds finished products no chassis and one-lithograph signs. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1931 with Whitnah holding 51% of the voting stock. The sixth volume shows many different devices for displaying men’s clothes wooden shirt stands adjustable clothes stands and even their introduction into the Cohn-Storthz men’s shop in St. Louis MO. The famed St. Louis Mart and Terminal Warehouse was a massive Art Deco edifice later named the Robert A. Young Federal Building and designed by Preston Bradshaw who began with McKim Mead & White. Acquired by the U.S. Army in 1941. Volumes VIII thru XIII consist primarily of original artwork and renderings by Whitnah and his Display Products Co. team for a variety of companies and encompassing a broad range of stands risers product displays and mechanical devices to create stunning advertising displays. These include ocean liner stacks for swim togs Easter bunny displays stork displays for infant apparel as well as a striking 4 foot tall hat box display store unit which holds hatboxes. Also included are Art Deco streamline inspired Concert Rotors for Christmas merchandise a custom built beach shop toy & gift displays for toy departments and more. Volume IX & X include large vividly coloured Art Deco Christmas Box and North Pole holiday designs; decorations and metal filigree displays for handkerchiefs and windows; a large giraffe and a firework display unit for toys and of special interest a vivid “Bell-Hop Series’ display pieces of caricature Chinese-American and African-American display holders for Christmas wreaths. In addition Whitnah’s company had developed the “Horizons†display system which included Flexible Wood Panels that could be incorporated into window displays become the window display themselves and served as a kit system to attach other Display Products Co. fittings all executed with an Art Deco modernist aesthetic. The Horizon system also incorporated interchangeable forms to create arresting streamline floor and window displays that would enable the company to come into any department store client’s business and create an entire display system for them right down to the glue and lighting. Volume XI presents artwork of caricature cartoon and humor signs drawing from major cartoonist of the period and created exclusively for the Display Products Co. each mounted as enameled triangle and hanging from stanchions next to the Men’s Department or other Departments employing their display fixtures. Many of the original designs in the last couple volumes reflect an animated whimsey with stylized figurines cartoon-like characters some appearing to draw from Held while others from Pogo or other animators of the 1930s-1950s and many of the drawings with a decided Western inspired cowboy theme. Also appearing in these portfolios are many designs incorporating bamboo and bamboo shapes for stands displays shelving and backdrops. Many of the silver print blueprints and reproduced designs refer to the specific wood finishes on the wood carved and wooden stands created by the company. The final volume is devoted to the seat and interior designs by Kaye Whitnah for the Sabrejet 60 upgrade noted in this design proposal as the Sabre 70 and dated 1970 which would later become the Sabrejet 75 when it went into production at the end of the 1970s. Featuring 5 windows on the fuselage the Sabrejet Series 60A was over 3 feet longer than the original series 40 approved in 1963. The original drawings show window and and window frame assembly units as well as the interior cabin and seats designed by Whitnah along with manufacturing steps and Polaroid photos showing the process. Ray Whitnah 1893-1973 was the son of Arthur Whitnah a general store owner in Cuba IL and later Gardner KS where he worked as a sign painter and letterer until 1909 when he moved to Chicago to take a course in window display at the Chicago School of Window Decorating apprenticed with Jack Cameron -- famed commercial artist and designer at the Harris Emery Co. Department Store in Des Moines IA and later as the display manager for the 35 store Pugh Store Co. chain. After their bankruptcy in 1919 he became the prize-winning display manager for Crosby Bros. and by 1930 had set up his own successful display businesses in St. Louis MO where he would remain for the rest of his life. Kaye Lamoyne Whitnah 1918-1992 worked with father by World War II as an industrial designer and artist with Display Products Co. at 3944 1/2 Olive in St. Louis MO. Also an inventor he patents portable grids for Terrazzo Floor securing plates in displays in 1968 and later became the only manufacturer in the United States for the BMW Isetta parts with a customer list of 350 different Isettas. He was the owner of Whitnah’s Angler’s Isle Resort in Hay Lake MO and by 1989 had accumulated a collection of 13 1/2 Isettas manufacturing gas caps windshields and even hubcaps by creating molds and designs from the original parts. See: Appliances for Pillar Decorations Merchants Record & Show Window 1919 vol. XLV No. 5 p. 28-29. Who’s Who in the Profession R.T. Whitney Crosby Bros. Topeka KS Merchants Record & Show Window 1919 vol. 44 pp. 46-48; Designer Defies “Bubble Car†Parts Blight Pine River Journal Vol. 54 No. 17 July 13 1989. Raymond Whitnah, Display Products Co., Kaye Whitnah, Industrial Designs, hardcover