Beech-Nut Gum Mystery Artist – Solved

 SOLVED  The Beech-Nut Gum mystery artist has been identified by Craig J. Lane, Vancouver, B.C., as Stuart Hay (1889-1969). George Freeman verified the identification with a link — Hay’s signature next to a picture credit HERE. While a brief biography of Stuart Hay can be found HERE. Hay’s humorous illustrations frequently appeared in the New York Tribune throughout 1922; in the same period he contributed to Everybody’s Magazine and Judge.

[Photoplay, August 1934]

And Will Chandler (of Chandler Art Consulting Services, San Diego) adds:

‘The Circus artwork appears to have inspired a three dimensional model that Beech-Nut exhibited in their booth at San Diego’s California Pacific International Exposition in 1935-36. In the 1936 season they also advertised a traveling version in one or more trucks; the ad for that states that the San Diego model was also exhibited at subsequent expositions in Dallas and Cleveland.

The Beech-Nut Packing Company had a large booth in the 1935-36 CPIE exposition in San Diego, in the Palace of Food & Beverages, managed by W.C. Arkell (Clark).

The first Hays advertisement, titled “Join the Big Parade,” ran on the August 1934 back covers of Photoplay and New Movie Magazine, and as the inside front cover of the September 1934 Movie Classic Magazine.’

[International confectioner, 1922]

THANKS to Craig J. Lane, George Freeman, Will Chandler

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