Advertising illustration by Andrew Loomis for an Oh Henry! bar


This billboard, from the 1920s, which is for Oh Henry! candy bars, has an illustration by Andrew Loomis, who was a notable illustrator at the time. I'd never heard of him, but he must have been pretty important in order to be allowed to sign his drawing on an ad. Most illustrators are anonymous.

By the way, just to get it out of the way, it seems like either Loomis had never seen an actual Oh Henry candy bar, or he exaggerated the size. Anyway, let's look at the illustration:


Although I don't really know, my best guess is that this was done with tempera, possibly egg tempera, which Andrew Wyeth used. Of course Andrew Wyeth was never considered an illustrator, he was a fine artist. Most illustrators don't sign their work. This must have really meant a lot to the Oh Henry company, that they got Loomis to do the artwork.

Speaking for myself, although I've done thousands of illustrations (my style is cartoon illustrations) I never signed them, and I can count on one hand the number of clients who asked me to. My illustrations weren't created because anyone had an interest in my artwork, it was there to serve a purpose, to catch the eye.

I like this illustration a lot. I'd like to believe that if I lived back in those days I would have worn an outfit like that while out golfing (including the bow tie!), and I definitely would have shared my Oh Henry bar with a girl as pretty as that.


Sadly, this type of illustration went away in the 1960s to be replaced with photography, and I understand. Photos seem to be more honest, and I'm still worried about whether people expected an Oh Henry bar to be that size!


Dang, now I'm hungry for an Oh Henry bar!

Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections.
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