Swans on a Lake shows the talented fine art work by this artist whose career, both as a painter and as a commercial artist/illustrator, was well received by collectors and critics alike. Cecil Calvert Beall's treatment of this lake scene reveals his fascination for the emerging post World War II abstract movement.

Cecil Calvert Beall was a member of the Salmagundi Club, the American Watercolor Society of New York, the Overseas Press Club, the Hudson Valley Art Association, the New Rochelle Art Association, the Mount Vernon Art Association and the Society of Illustrators (where he exhibited in 1961 and May 1963, receiving the Award of Excellence in 1961). He regularly participated in the exhibitions organized by the American Watercolor Society as well as in many local and regional exhibitions.

Cecil Calvert Beall is perhaps best remembered for his World War II posters, his portraits of World War II heroes, and for a painting of the Surrender of the Japanese Aboard the Missouri. President Harry S. Truman made this painting the official one for the event. Beall had already distinguished himself during World War I as a scenic and costume artist.

Cecil Calvert Beall's works are part of the collections of the Air Force Academy Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the Navy Museum-US Navy Art Collection in Washington, DC; the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia; the Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware.

Cecil Calvert Beall's illustrations in watercolor, with contrasting shades of light and dark, were featured in the popular weekly, Collier's, during the course of over twenty years. His portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the cover of Collier's in 1936 was so popular that Beall was appointed art director for the National Democratic Committee.

Beall's association with Collier's produced a good number of covers between the early 1930s and the mid 1950s and a huge number of story illustrations. In addition, Beall regularly contributed to Reader's Digest; Cosmopolitan; Woman's Day; Woman's Home Companion; True; the Saturday Evening Post; Maclean's; Family Circle; Redbook Magazine; Successful Farming; The American Magazine; This Week; Better Homes and Gardens; the New York Herald Tribune; American Legion Monthly; and Elks, among many.

Cecil Calvert Beall was also a frequent lecturer covering the broad topic of Art In the Magazine.

(Researched and compiled by Michel G. Delhaise © Jordan-Delhaise Gallery, Ltd.)