This oil on canvas by the well-listed American illustrator Douglass Crockwell offers a regionalist in style look at pre-industrial whaling, evoking the epic Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Created as part of an advertising campaign for the Red & White grocery chain. This original artwork was kept in the company’s archives and presented to an employee named William E. Krapf in 1940 as seen on the gallery label. Work is monogrammed lower right in the artist’s distinct script.

Douglass Crockwell was a prolific and gifted illustrator who created several covers for The Saturday Evening Post. Few artists became linked to so many ad campaigns: Welch’s Grape Juice, Coca-Cola, Red & White Foods, Republic Steel, GE, Friskies and many others. His longest ad campaign was for The Brewing Industry Association. Crockwell also made and lectured on experimental avant-garde films.