A fascinating piece of original painted artwork (19"x 32" overall) for the book jacket for "A Pictorial History of War Films" (1974) by Clyde Jeavons. Though Chantrell was best known as a cinema poster artist, he occasionally took on commissions for LP covers & book jacket designs such as this.

 

The artwork here is sumptuous. Apart from 2 photo additions (Rock Hudson in a smooch to the left & a b/w image from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to the right), all the other artwork is painted. In typical Chantrell fashion, the images of the likes of John Wayne, Kenneth Moore, Donald Sutherland, Richard Todd, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin, Gregory Peck etc, are almost photographic in quality. Where else in a piece of original artwork can one find so many of the leading lights of 20th century cinema presented in one piece of artwork? As the master commercial artist, Chantrell captures the vivid, colourful & exhilarating aspects of war (as presented in most contemporary cinema up to this time) and this would have had clear appeal to boys and teenagers at the time.

 

The reason that an area to the right hand side has been left blank is that the book jacket was designed to wrap around the covers and Chantrell carried on the design on the inside of the jacket to the front cover. The blank space on the inside was filled with text. An image of the published book cover is shown for comparison.