Advertising Eye-Catchers

The difference between "commercial art" and "fine art" is not what it used to be. Many artists now do both kinds of work. One important reason: many an advertiser has discovered that highbrow Art can be harnessed with lowbrow Merchandising.

Outstanding among such culture-plated advertisers is Container Corp. of America, big, enterprising maker of paperboard products. Last year, Container began a "United Nations" ad campaign, featuring paintings of their native lands by celebrated foreign artists. This week, to coincide with the San Francisco conference, the paintings--minus advertising--go on display in Chicago's Art Institute. They add up to as interesting a show of modern art (in its less extreme phases) as has been seen in the U.S. in recent years.

Paepcke's Packages. Chief credit for Container's collection went to its sleek president, Walter Paul Paepcke (pronounced Pep-key), 48. Handsome, greying Elizabeth ("Pussy") Paepcke, his wife, rated an assist; an amateur painter and enthusiastic collector (of Picasso, Leger, Degas), she got her sales-minded husband interested in art. By 1937, he was so thoroughly sold that he not only had Container's products designed in streamlined shapes, but decided to advertise them--something unheard of in the paperboard industry.

With the help of N. W. Ayer, Paepcke embarked on an ad program using modern art for illustration. The ads proved to be eye-catchers. Even though some--like Abstractionist Jean Helion's--were practically unsolvable riddles, the public seemed to like them. Convinced that the paintings packed a selling wallop, Paepcke next ordered copy boned down to one-sentence, telegraphic messages like "No land is strange to U.S. paper packages today."

The "United Nations" series was Paepcke's idea. The artists chosen to represent their native countries were, for the most part, commercial virgins. Although the only instructions given them were the dimensions of the ad, some of the first ads appeared chock-full of Container Corp. boxes. Paepcke added a second rule: no more boxes. Thus, many of the paintings in the show are as unrelated to Container Corp. as a Waugh seascape is to the Cunard Line.

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