Maxwell House advertisement from Life magazine featuring a painting by Paul Sample, "The Return"

Paul Sample, American, 1896 - 1974

Share

about 1946

Offset print

Overall: 14 × 10 1/4 in. (35.6 × 26 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Hood Museum of Art Acquisitions Fund

2011.28.1

Publisher

Life Magazine, New York, New York

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Print

Research Area

Print

Not on view

Label

Here, the advertisers employ Paul Sample’s The Return as a comforting depiction of a soldier returning to his snow-covered hometown. Flanked by telephone poles, the receding path splits the composition and suggests the peaceful remoteness of a rural New England community in the winter, yet uncertainty, we suspect, lies ahead. After covering the war firsthand as a correspondent for Life magazine, Sample documents the postwar journey home with candor, in turn infusing the ad with an American longing for stability and peacefulness.

Below Sample’s image, the scene of a family enjoying coffee together pulls a cloak of domesticity across the ambiguity surrounding Sample’s soldier. Their coziness links coffee to happy family life, while the needlepoint sampler on the wall idealizes the home. The ad equates the beverage with American familial identity and returning soldiers alike.

From the 2024 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 118, Coffee and Tea in Art: A Brew of Cultural Symbolism, Solace, and Introspection, curated by Jeffrey Liu ‘24, Class of 1954 Intern

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 118, Coffee and Tea in Art: A Brew of Cultural Symbolism, Solace, and Introspection, Jeffrey Liu '24, Class of 1954 Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 11 - July 7, 2024

Exile from Eden, Graham Gund Gallery of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, March 26-July 22, 2012.

Provenance

Ebay, Inc.; sold to present collection, 2011.

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

We welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Please contact us at: Hood.Collections@dartmouth.edu