Falter was born in 1910 and at 18 entered art school. He got work as an illustrator and among his most notable works was this series he did for Pall Mall cigarettes. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he acquired professional job experience before even graduating high school. For a few years, Falter worked as a comic strip artist on a strip entitled Down Thru the Ages, for the local Falls City Journal, in Falls City, Nebraska
He illustrated posters and pamphlets for the military during WWII and post-war he created 175 magazine covers for the Saturday Evening Post.
His client roster was boosted by Gulf Oil Company, Four Roses Whiskey, Pall Mall, GM, Pepsi, Schlitz, Lucky Strike and Arrow Shirts. His career flourished in pulp magazines until he became one of the most noted illustrators for the most notable magazine in the nation: Saturday Evening Post.
He delighted in adding images of real people into his compositions, sometimes including himself. Falter paintings seemed to arouse some furor and a great amount of interest, similar to that of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld’s daughter’s name, ‘Nina,’ famously hidden away in his images. Viewers religiously searched for Falter’s image, usually with a pipe, standing in a crowd waiting to be found out. In his later years, he painted portraits of a number of famous people, although not for magazines, including actress Olivia De Havilland, actor James Cagney, and Admiral Halsey.
In World War II, Falter joined the Navy as a chief boatswain’s mate and was soon commissioned as “lieutenant with special art duties” after it was learned where his work had been published. He was promoted rapidly, while designing over 300 recruiting posters for the government.
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/search.html?q=john+falter&start=0 The Naval History and Heritage Command has dozens of his paintings online
After securing a stable income, Falter opened a studio in New Rochelle, New York, where he was in close proximity to some of his close artist friends. New Rochelle was a popular destination for artists at the time; giants in the illustration field, including J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, and Frederick Remington, along with many writers, musicians, and actors, lived there as well.
Falter’s paintings were set farther away and often at interesting viewpoints that allowed for the inclusion of more detail in support of the visual narrative. This composition style inspired other seasoned illustrators to reconsider their own processes, one of whom was Norman Rockwell, who briefly tried his hand at Falter’s approach. Rockwell would later refer to those works as his “Falter Period.”
his collected works of art, illustration and personal letters were donated to the University of Nebraska https://nebraskahistory.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=Falter%2C+John+Philip%2C+1910-1982
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