ARTIST: Edward T Vebell (Illinois, 1921-2018)
NAME: Fulton's Clermont Steamboat
YEAR: 1980
MEDIUM: acrylic on board
CONDITION: Very good. No visible inpaint under UV light.
SIGHT SIZE: 20 x 21 inches / 50 x 53 cm
BOARD SIZE: 26 x 27 inches / 66 x 68 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right
NOTE: This painting is the original which was published on the Fleetwood Commemorative Cover for Epic Events in American History series issued in 1985. It was the English who invented the first steam engine and the first steam railroad but it was an American, Robert Fulton, who, in 1807, formally launched the steamboat era. Fulton was not the inventor, however, of the steamboat: that distinction belongs to poor John Fitch, a Connecticut Yankee and a veteran of the Continental Army who, as early as 1787, built and launched a forty-five-foot steamboat. But, alas, nothing came of that brave experiment. Fitch could get no financing for his invention and in the end gave up in despair and fled to the wilds of Kentucky where he died. Ten years later, the New York lawyer and diplomat, Robert Livingston, anticipating the role that steamboats might play in a vast nation whose only effective transportation was by water, persuaded his young friend Robert Fulton, with whose artistic and inventive talents he was familiar, to try his hand at building a steamboat. Fulton boasted a natural talent for engineering. He eagerly embraced Livingston's proposal and by 1807 was ready to launch The Clermont, named after Livingston's hometown. On its maiden trip, the boat steamed up the Hudson to Albany and returned five days later, having averaged a speed of five miles an hour. Successful as it was, it brought no great wealth to either Livingston or Fulton, for in 1824, John Marshall's Court pronounced their monopoly unconstitutional as an infringement on congressional power to regulate "commerce concerning the several states."
PROVENANCE: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation.
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 120443
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BIOGRAPHY:
Ed Vebell (1921-2018) is an American illustrator, veteran, and Olympic athlete who attended the Chicago Institute of Art before enlisting. While serving in the Army, he was a contributing artist for Stars & Stripes magazine, working side by side with Bill Mauldin. His second major appointment was as courtroom artist for the Nuremburg Trials; his haunting portrait of Hermann Gering can be viewed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Over the decades following the war, Vebell designed 16 circulated postage stamps for the US Postal Service, and enjoyed frequent commissions from Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and Time.