This colorful and vibrant gouache painting from artist & illustrator James Bingham captures the beauty and flurry of activity in a small, coastal Mexican town. Villagers are pictured carrying out their daily tasks, seen bringing baskets of goods into town and stopping at the local shops that dot the cliffside road. The hustle & bustle is brought to an abrupt stop as a burro stops for a rest in the middle of the street, stubborn and unmoving, effectively blocking a Jeep carrying a shipment of Coca-Cola from reaching its destination at the general store just up the street. A comical standoff between beast and machine, the old and the modern, where hilariously the donkey still comes out victorious.

James Bingham worked as an illustrator for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and other serial magazines throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties as well as illustrating advertisements like this piece for Coca-Cola. He also created propaganda illustrations for the Navy during World War II.

This beautiful mid-century soda advertising illustration is matted behind glass and housed in it’s likely original limed oak wood frame.