BERN HILL (1911-1977) JERSEY CENTRAL - THE BIG LITTLE RAILROAD. Circa 1950s. 23 3/4x18 inches, 60 1/4x46 3/4 cm. Condition B+ / B: restoration and overpainting along horizontal fold; restored loss in top right corner; restoration at edges. Bern Hill was a graphic designer and painter. He "worked for the Kudner Agency, a New York City advertising firm. At the end of 1949, General Motor's Electro-Motive Division embarked on a rather radical advertising campaign which included vertical format streamline style paintings for the covers of Railway Age" (Vintage Rails, January / February 1998, p. 64). Between 1950 and 1956, Hill painted 65 paintings. "Electro-Motive also produced a series of very high-grade posters of Hill's paintings that were overwritten by the marketing theme for that particular railroad . . . it is unknown if all 65 paintings were turned into posters . . . Hill's assignment was to portray the 'feel' of each railroad in a scene that often captured the landscape of the individual road and gave the viewer the sense of that road's missions - freight, passenger or switching" (Railroad Heritage, No. 6, 2002, p. 10).
