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ODU Community Collections
3000 Perry LibraryAnna Wagner; Mel Frizzell
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Open to researchers without restrictions.
[Identification of item], Box [insert number], Folder [insert number and title], George Withers Papers, Specials Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Brian Withers
Gift. Accession #A2013-07
The finding aid was created by Anna Wagner in 2012.
George Withers was an artist who was born in Wichita, Kansas on December 20, 1911. He was educated K-12 in Kansas City, Missouri and attended Kansas University where he graduated with a B.A. in Art. Withers attended the Art Students League in New York on an art scholarship and studied under the great anatomist George Bridgeman. His commercial career began in Philadelphia working with the advertising agency, N.W. Ayer &Company. He moved on to the work with several agencies in New York – McCann-Erickson, Young and Rubicam, Rahl & Co., Sutton and O'Brien. Withers illustrated stories for many artists including J.D. Salinger in The Saturday Evening Post, Robert Ruark in Colliers Magazine, and many others in Redbook Magazine, Field and Stream, Bluebook, Good Housekeeping, the New York Herald Tribune, Holiday Magazine, and Look. He did work for commercial and government accounts such as Arrow Shirts, Birdseye, Presto cake mix, Kolynos, Swan Soap, Smith Corona, Chase & Sanborn, Campbell's Soups, Calverts, Bakers Chocolate, Ny Bell, Conoco, Citgo, Ford Motor Company, Schenleys, Hartford Insurance Company, US War Bonds, FTD Florists, Syracuse China, Pan Am, Weber and Heilbroner, and the War Advertising Council. As a war artist he served in the United Kingdom and at European Theater of Operations in Paris under General Eisenhower. George Withers died in 1959.
Note written by Special Collections Staff
This collection contains artwork by George Withers primarily related to World War II. It includes posters, copies of illustrations for military publications, letters, and an Army personnel appointment notice. An illustration of the battle on Guadalcanal for "Army Talks" magazine is included, along with an illustration from Combat Orientation. Letters of thanks from General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lucius Clay as well as an article about an exhibit of Withers' work at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum on Long Island are enclosed.
[Identification of item and date], Box 1, Folder 1, Illustrations From Military Publications, Letters, Army Personnel Appointment Notice, 1943 June 30-1946 January 29, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: A Letter Across the Atlantic, 1944 August 30, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: GI's Letter Home, 1944 September 3, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: Chantier Interdit au Public, (Public Not Allowed) France, 1944, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: World War II, England, Scotland, and France, 1944-1945, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: Liberated Paris in the Summer of 1945, 1945, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: GIs and Friends, Parisian Nightclub, Summer, 1945, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: Parisian Watercolor Studies, Summer, 1945, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: VE DAY, 1945 May 8, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
Poster: International Red Cross, Paris, GI's Drinking Coffee, Summer, 1945, Box 1, George Withers Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.