DESCRIPTION: Unpublished poster-size manuscript conceptual map ca. 1975 by National Geographic Art Director Howard Paine (1) presents a unified Great Lakes–Midwest region extending from Lake Superior to central Kentucky. Rendered in soft colored pencil and wash, the sheet studies regional physiography—rivers, watersheds, and upland structure—without the finished editorial layers of a production map. Paine experiments with state boundaries, drainage patterns, and implied landcover to test how a broad Midwest–Great Lakes treatment might read at atlas scale.
The verso carries a companion terrain study in the same hand, emphasizing elevation, forest cover, and hydrology with Paine’s characteristic, lightly modeled shading. Together the two drawings show the internal design process behind a National Geographic map that was never realized in print, offering a rare look at the developmental artwork that preceded formal cartographic production. They are among the few surviving privately-held examples of Paine’s pre-press regional concept work.
These conceptual sheets can be securely dated to the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, the period when National Geographic relied on hand-rendered shaded-relief masters and watercolor terrain studies for both its Atlas of the World (6th–8th editions) and the Close-Up U.S.A. series. The green landwash, blue-gray lake treatment, and pencil-modeled hydrology match the Society’s internal cartographic style of roughly 1968–1977, placing Howard Paine’s drafts squarely within that high phase of Nat Geo’s pre-digital map production.
(1) From 1957 to 1990 Howard Paine was a Graphic Artist and eventually Art Director at National Geographic. Mr. Paine was responsible for design changes to the National Geographic magazine cover that over time replaced the old-fashioned border of clustered oak and laurel leaves with a simplified, more modern design that included photographs. Also, during the period 1981 to 2012 Mr. Paine was Art Director for the U.S. Postal Service. In that role Paine was responsible for the design of over 400 stamps including the 29-cent Elvis Presley stamp, with over 500 million sold.
Sources:
http://www.howardepaine.com/ngs.php
PUBLICATION DATE: 1975
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: N/A
CONDITION: Very good.
No issues. No folds.
COLORING: None
ENGRAVER:
SIZE: 23
" x
36 "
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION: 62
PRICE: $300
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