The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 73

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Ell The Gardening Report A flowering of commercial illustration will be on exhibit Friday, October 13. 2000 MY BACKYARD from El "Half the time, the seed didn't come up at all, and if it did it didn't look at all like what they had imagined." Things were changing by 1884, when W. Atlee Burpee, a young Philadelphia seed salesman, produced his first catalog with color illustrations. Burpee wanted no part of "impossible vegetables and imaginary flowers." Over the next few decades, he established trust by using lifelike illustrations that didn't exaggerate the potential results. So imagine Burpee's chagrin when he was reviewing final proofs for the 1914 Burpee's Farm Annual.

The Matchless tomato illustrated on the cover looked "about the size of a grapefruit, maybe a little larger," Rumm says. It was too late to change it hundreds of thousands of catalog covers had already been printed. Instead, Burpee wrote an apology that was inserted in the catalog, saying he was surprised, "as doubtless our friends will be," at the size of the tomato shown on the cover. He was probably even more surprised come summer: Scores of customers wrote to say no apology was necessary their Matchless tomatoes had grown as big as or even bigger than the one in the painting. "More than anything else, this helped to cement the bond of trust Burpee had with its customers," says Rumm, a historian who joined the Warminster company in August as manager of corporate communications.

Then he muses: "Maybe if the tomatoes had been smaller, things could have gone the other way." That cover and the apology will be on display next weekend as part of an exhibition of catalog art from the W. Atlee Burpee Co. archival if r. I i tx I vf I I I i I RON TARVER Inquirer Staff Photographer The 1887 Burpee catalog is held by John Rumm. The original of the art on the righthand page will be on display during the USArtists exhibit.

It's Time cover of the 1903 catalog. Lunzer followed the instructions to a Rumm says but in one corner he added a little chef with a smile on his face. "I don't know for sure, but I think that may be Mr. Lunzer himself," Rumm says. "It suggests he had a playful streak." And W.

Atlee Burpee liked the illustration so much that it became the front cover. Lunzer also painted the 1901 cover, showing a group of cherubs carrying a plate laden with fruits and vegetables. That cover is the most popular today, Rumm says: "People who see it want to have it reproduced." The exhibit also will display the only original painting known to survive, one used for the cover of the 1892 catalog, on which the slogan "Burpee's Seeds Grow" was displayed for the first time. That may have been why it was kept. "It's a miracle that it survived, because they were painted on cardboard and probably disposed of," Rumm says.

"It was broken into three pieces, but it is being restored in New York for display." The painting shows a woman reclining in a bower, looking at a bouquet. Rumm believes the artist is Frank C. Schlitzer. The slogan was the result of a contest sponsored by Burpee in 1891. First prize actually went to another catchy phrase, but the more the Burpee's folks thought about it, the more they liked the second-prize slogan, Rumm says.

And that's the one they used for almost 100 years. "Somebody once said to Burpee 'What do you expect seeds to do, sing and But at a simple level, this is what people wanted, to be reassured," Rumm says. "It was all about trust again." Rumm, who for four years was coordinator of traveling exhibits for the Smithsonian Institution, hopes this exhibit will travel, too. Already there are plans to mount it at the Chicago Flower Show in the spring, he says, and botanic gardens and historical societies around the country have shown interest. As curator of the exhibit, he hopes it will make a case that commercial art is not second-rate but important in its own right.

"Yes, the illustrations were to sell a product and advertise what the company was doing," he says, "but I think that the work of some of the artists is on a level with some of the best examples of 19th-century natural-history illustration." collection that is one of the featured events at the USArtists exposition and sale at the 33d Street Armory in Philadelphia. Now in its ninth year, USArtists offers the works of American artists from 60 galleries across the country at a benefit for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This year, Burpee is one of the sponsors of the three-day event, which is organized by the academy's women's committee and is scheduled to begin next Friday. The Burpee exhibit, which is pre-miering at the exposition, will show original catalog covers and inside color plates from 1884 to 1915. It will highlight 38 pieces, including covers and interior plates from eight artists, and wood blocks used for black-and-white illustrations from a ninth.

But it will also focus on the artists behind the art. Although most are all but forgotten now, they were highly regarded commercial and botanical artists in their day, Rumm says. Uncovering their stories required Rumm to be a detective of sorts, tracing clues through corporate records stashed in warehouses and back rooms or in old correspondence, or seeking hints in the catalogs. "Very rarely were any of the catalog illustrations signed, so we've had to piece it together," he says. "We've identified nine artists from 1884 through World War I who produced either paintings or engravings for the catalogs." He doesn't know who painted the Matchless tomato or what happened to the artist, although "it's probably fair to say they didn't ask him or her to paint for the catalog the following year," Rumm quips.

But others left more of a mark. French-born Paul de Longpre, for instance, was known as "Le Roi de Fleurs," or King of Flowers, because he produced countless illustrations of flowers that are much in demand as collectibles today. His work was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893-94. In 1895 and 1896, Burpee commissioned him to spend the summer at Fordhook Farms in Doylestown, painting sweet peas, violets and other flowers from nature, and capturing, Burpee wrote, "the most elusive charms of leaf and flower." One of his paintings of violets appeared on the cover of the 1897 catalog. "At that point, he was considered to be one of the leading artists of his time," Rumm says, "and Ford- Occasionally, an artist let a hint of his own personality creep into his catalog paintings.

Such was the case with Alois Lunzer. This Austrian-born artist had won critical acclaim around 1880 for his 192 illustrations for Thomas Meehan's four-volume The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States, and he produced more than two dozen wa-tercolors for Burpee catalogs. In 1901, a Burpee official wrote giving very specific instructions on how he should illustrate a new eggplant called Black Beauty for a back Do the right thing for houseplants. Any still outdoors must come in; choose the coolest room in the house for the transition. Continue to divide perennials.

Plant any new purchases promptly. Continue to plant and transplant deciduous shrubs and trees. Keep all new plantings adequately watered for the rest of autumn. Begin lifting tender bulbs and the like: dahlias, caladiums, gladiolus, cannas, hymenocalis. Cut the foliage off, shake off soil, and allow to dry for a day or two.

Store in a cool space (40 to 50 degrees is ideal). Dry vermiculite is a good storage medium, but check every six weeks or so and moisten the vermiculite slightly if the roots seem to be shriveling. Ginger lily rhizomes (Hedychium sp.) can be planted in a frost-free cold frame or potted for indoors (cut the stalks back and let them resprout; keep a bit moister than house plants). Add green matter from the vegetable garden and flower beds to the compost (but put diseased stuff in the trash). The mixture with dry hook was the largest and best-known trial grounds in the United States, and probably the world." The trial grounds, in full bloom in summer, became an outdoor studio, and Burpee made it a point to have an artist in residence for at least a couple of weeks each year.

In 1899, however, de Longpre moved to Los Angeles so he could paint year-round, and established an orchard, thousands of roses, and a huge mansion that became a tourist attraction on the site of what is now downtown Hollywood. Then there was Anton Hochstein, who prepared the first color illustrations to appear in Burpee's catalog. One of a number of artists who fled revolution in Germany in 1848 and later settled in a kind of botanical-art corridor between Philadelphia and Rochester, N.Y., Hochstein was botanical illustrator with the U.S. Army's Mexican Boundary Survey in 1858, sketching and later painting plants that were discovered. He also illustrated an 1865 book on insects that attack fruit trees, one of the first illustrated treatises on insects in America, Rumm says.

Another German artist who earned a degree of fame was William Momberger, who painted the 1890 catalog cover for Burpee. Momberger was well-known as an illustrator for children's books, and also engraved battle scenes for John S.C. Abbott's History of the Civil War in America in the 1860s. tree leaves accelerates decomposition. Let winter do some of the heavy work for you by starting next year's new flower bed now.

Turn the sod over in chunks and leave in place; the freeze-thaw actions will help break it down and make completion of the bed much easier in spring. Collect seeds of sunflowers, salvias, tithonia, oxypetalum (a.k.a. tweedia), coneflower, cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), cardinal climber and other morning glories, coreopsis, butterfly weed (and other asclepias species) and platycodon for next spring. Amuse children by assigning them to gather the spring-loaded seeds of impatiens. If You Go USArtists: The American Art Exposition and Sale will be held at Philadelphia's 33d Street Armory, north of Market Street, Oct.

20-22. Hours: 1 1 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1 1 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday. Admission: $12 ($6 seniors and students). Special exhibition of Burpee catalog art 1884-1915 is free with admission. Oct. 20 at 2 p.m.

in the auditorium, historian and exhibition curator John Rumm will lecture on "The Burpee Story in Catalog Art." Information: 1-800-455-8312 or 215-972-0550 or http:www.usartists.org Sunflower Michael Martin Mills Next week: Answers to garden questions. Write to Michael Martin Mills, The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia 19101. E-mail (please include name and locale): mmillsphillynews.com Denise Cowie's email address is dcowiephillynews.com llii 'II I ini mi imil mil milium timmpimil I HI huh liiwiini mini mm Minimi ii iiniinii mi ijifimiiii imi i iiin i i mpr ir p- 1 v-' wm mm itea'" A I III! In Real Estate (he Key Word is Location, fA Location, Location! In (he Oriental Rug business it's Reputation, 4 That could he cozier tlian the world', finest handmade mattress? How ahout one with a teddy hear on top? Shifman Mattresses is offering a free Gund hear (up to $100 value) when you purchase any Ultra Premium set. You can enjoy all of the uncompromising quality, comfort, and lasting value of a Shifman Mattress plus the most adorahle teddy hear ever. So snuggle up to Shifman and settle down to tne world most com fortahle mattress.

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