Revell Box Art ... Steele?

John Steel. He was a technical illustrator for North American, a combat artist for the USMC in three wars, and a diver magazine artist.

He painted quite a bit of wildlife in particular underwater kelp and sea life.

There's quite a bit of his art on display online.

His box art for Revell was a big influence in my love for drawing. My favorite one is the San Juan Capistrano.

Steel is one of my favorites too. He also did no art for Aurora and Lindberg.

One of these days I want to pick up a copy of Dr. Thomas Graham's book on airplane kit box art. It's a most interesting subject.

Actually, John Steele did most of the artwork for Aurora as well as Revell. He painted the artwork for that horrible Aurora Bismarck that showed her in a camouflage pattern she never wore, the old KGV, Graf Spee, and USS St. Paul. He also did the original work on the U-505. He might have done others, but I still have these boxes showing his signature quite clearly.

Bill

Steele did perhaps one of my favorite box artworks ever, the H-444 U.S.S. Lexington :)

Didn't FSM have an article about some of those fellows some years back?

So was his name Steel or Steele? and were there / are there any original paintings of the "Picture Fleet" boxes? Does anyone know if there are where they can be found? I have found pictures of the box art etc on the net but they don't refernce purchasing the original artwork.

BTW thanks everyone for your information and thoughts. Do you think a poll on which of the paintings on the boxes is a favorite would go anywhere? I've also had my memory jogged into remembering that aircraft and armor were also represented by Mr Steel / Steele and others as well

mississippivol

Didn't FSM have an article about some of those fellows some years back?

Yes there was. At least 10 years ago I think

It's "Steel." I googled "John steel revell" and got quite a bit of interesting info.

My earliest memory of his paintings is of the first Revell "Picture Fleet" kits, in the late fifties. Those kits were reboxings of the very first Revell warships- the Iowa-class battleship, Midway-class carrier, Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, and Fletcher-class destroyer. All of them, of course, had appeared earlier with box art by other people. Steel did lots of other paintings for Revell after that - ships, aircraft, and armor. I don't remember whether he did any cars or trucks.

I read somewhere that he worked extremely fast, cranking out a painting every two or three days - on an easel propped up in his kitchen.

He did lots of paintings for Aurora - mainly reissues (including the famous WWI airplanes, the 1/600 warships, and the 1/48 tanks. And quite a few for Lindberg.

I've got the FSM cd set; I'll see if I can find that article.

When I was a kid, I had the idea to cut the box lids apart and try to frame the cover art.  Of course, as a kid, I butchered them, including cutting the side panel pictures to keep like trading cards.  I'm trying something similar these days, with a little more experience behind me.

I used to cut the box picture out and had them framed with cheap wooden and plastic frames all over my room's walls. I also had models of a  B-24, B-17, ME 109 and a P-51 (all in the same scale) hanging from my ceiling with orange thread simulating tracers!  Those were the days!

It is interesting watching Antique Roadshow how the value of the originals of advertising art has blossomed in price!  Many were originally done in oils. I assume they were then photographed and went through various photo-optical techniques to create the printing masters.  Sure would be nice to luck into some of the originals for model box art :-)

Don

I often thought they needed defibrillators on Antique Road Show. You know...

" I value this at at least $100,000 at auction"

"Oh My.... ughhh"

"Get the paddles.... 400 milliamps...  CLEAR...thump"

Yeah ;

   I sometimes wonder where they get those figures too . They told a guy his " Texaco Tanker Toy ship " With wheels was worth $ 1,000.00 bucks .They also said the one he had that was motorized without wheels , was worth about ten bucks .I Was offered $1,200.00 for mine in the box !

I took it too! I still have two originals and they are in the box. One motorized and one not .They are part of my estate inventory .

I also have some I bought at flea markets and yard sales  .I used the hulls for R.C. Vessels.