Gilbey's Gin - With water. No lemon.

Gilbey's Gin took the high road in 1958 with this classy and fairly beautiful ad. It's a picture of the bottle. Fine. behind the bottle is a gorgeous painting of what seems to be New York City, or some similar place. (Sorry. I'm not super familiar with NY). To go further out on the limb, I'm going to guess it's a picture of Manhattan. If isn't Manhattan, Manhattan should sue Gilbey's for copyright infringement. Either way, Gilbey's wants you to start thinking about your New Year's drinking. Also something about Lincoln.

Anyway, gosh this is a nice painting. Interestingly, the artist (whom we'll ponder later) has forgone the classic blanket-of-snow winter holiday look in favor of the damp-pavement-and-clammy-fog kind of winter scene. That's what kind of weather we have in Chicago this Christmas. This makes for lots of glittery reflections of streetlights in the wet. Cleverly, the artist (whom we really are going to try and figure out later) has managed to include lots of color in the painting, despite it being a fairly dreary and gray kind of scene. Nice work.

You can really tell what kind of weather they're having in Manhattan (I think). The lines are interrupted with indistinct areas and all the lights have a bloom of white around them, which is what you'd see on a misty evening. You can look at the piece and think "Oh yeah. We had a night like that the other night."

All in all, I applaud the ad for not using the super corny Thomas Kinkade storybook cheese-fest type of art to sell product. This painting is complex, subtle and sophisticated, which, I'm sure the Gilbey's execs would insist is no coincidence.

The Research and Googling Brigade was unable to find out more about this artist. The signature seems clear enough, but  results were not encouraging. They searched on "Dohettre", "D. Hettre", "Hettre", and "Dehettre", with no joy. The letter after the D doesn't look like an E. It could be a period or something. If any Alert Readers can find some more information on the artist, the post will be updated and credit given to the cryptologist who can unravel the Dohettre mystery.

Here are some more wonderful events in the life of superchristian alcoholic and schmaltz artist Thomas Kinkade. Know what smells worse than urine on a plaster Disney figure? Hypocrisy. Enjoy.
Thomas Kinkade FBI investigation.
Thomas Kinkade arrested for drunk driving.
Thomas Kinkade Urinates on Winnie the Pooh figure at Disneyland hotel. He says God has guided his brush and his life for the past twenty years. Did God also guide his wiener when he marked Winnie the Pooh as his territory at Disneyland?
Thomas Kinkade heckles Siegfried & Roy (drunk) in Las Vegas.

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