On the Cover of the Reader's Digest

The wrap-around covers of Reader's Digest often featured illustrations of bucolic scenes from a simpler time in America. For these scenes, RD's editors commissioned such well established old school painters like John Pike, James Milton Sessions and Warren Baumgartner (below).

Baumgartner must have been particularly pleased to receive this assignment. In his book Illustrator in America, Walt Reed tell us that Baumgartner had a life-long love of fishing.

Like many of Reader's Digest's cover artists, Baumgartner was an accomplished water colourist. He was a member of the Society of Illustrators, the American watercolour Society, the National Academy of Design and the Salmagundi Club of New York.