Williams, St. Louis, American League, from the White Border series (T206) for the American Tobacco Company 1909 - 1911

This little card of Williams from St. Louis was printed by the American Tobacco Company at the turn of the century, and I really like the crude rendering of the image. I can imagine someone in a back room somewhere painting a kind of template that would then be reproduced. This is not a painting in the traditional sense, but I appreciate how the artist simplifies the image, flattening the figure into blocks of color, using the bare minimum of strokes to create a readable image. The flat yellow behind the figure creates a kind of compressed space, pushing the figure forward. These kinds of commercial images are interesting because they show us a way of seeing that is both naive and highly stylized. Like folk art, the artist is untutored, but like all art, there's still intention. The white border around the whole image makes it look complete, as if in conversation with other paintings.