It has been a long time between poses for Dan Grant, but this
time he will see the finished painting much sooner than he did the
first.
It has been a long time between poses for Dan Grant, but this time he will see the finished painting much sooner than he did the first.
His first pose was for Norman Rockwell in the spring of 1930 when the world-famous artist was commissioned to paint a picture for the 1931 Coca-Cola Co. calendar.
And the Hollister resident’s latest portrait will be shown from 4-7 p.m. Friday during Shannon Grissom’s monthly exhibit at Perfectly Imperfect, 727 San Benito St. Grant will appear as guest of honor.
Grant was 11 in 1930 and appeared in small parts in motion pictures. His 38 movies between 1927-33 included “The Champ” and “Platinum Blonde.” Rockwell was looking for a red-haired, freckle-faced all-American type boy as a model for the “Barefoot Boy” calendar.
“Mr. Rockwell selected me from Central Casting,” Grant said, “and every day for five days I took a cab from Los Angeles to Alhambra, where he was staying at the home of an artist friend. Norman Rockwell was a nice gentleman.
“He asked me what I was doing in school, and what sports I liked. Besides the cab fare back and forth, I got $50 a day for posing.”
That daily amount was more than most men made in a week if they could even find a job in the depths of the Depression.
Grant remembered Rockwell as being meticulous and often taking his time to get the scene just how he wanted before he painted part of it.
“For the first three days, he made charcoal sketches of me. In fact, I never saw the finished painting for more than 70 years,” Grant said.
The final painting depicts the boy wearing a straw hat, suspenders and rolled-up trousers, fishing pole laid aside, eating a sandwich and about to drink a Coke while his dog watches.
“The dog was not there when he was painting me,” Grant said.
Grant went to Officers’ Candidate School while in the Army during World War II. He earned a commission and was assigned to an aviation battalion. In 1947, he transferred to the newly created Air Force and was recalled for military service in 1950 during the Korean War. He married and today has a grown stepdaughter, and a son and twin daughters.
Over the years, he was in touch with the Coca-Cola Co. to try to locate the original painting.
“It was pretty well known in the 1930s,” he said. “It had been used on posters, school tablets, trays and other items.”
Grant learned, however, that no one seemed to know where the original was, which dashed his hopes of buying it.
He had worked for McCormick-Selph in southern California before being assigned to the local branch in 1976 as the personnel officer. Grant retired in 1985 and is active as a volunteer in the San Juan Bautista Chamber of Commerce.
Then in the summer of 2001, 71 years after he had sat for it, the painting turned up. An executive had taken it to his home and had apparently cared for it because it was in excellent condition.
NBC-TV heard of it and arranged for the painting to be shown publicly for the first time. Grant was notified and invited to the “Today” show to see it unveiled.The 82-year-old Grant watched as it was revealed, and saw the boy he had been 71 years earlier.
Anne Curry, the show’s co-host, asked him his impression, and he answered, “I enjoy it immensely.”
The painting, one of six Rockwell was commissioned to do between 1928-35, is now displayed in Coca-Cola’s corporate headquarters, in Atlanta. Three of the six are still missing.
Rockwell died at 84 in 1978, the best-liked and most-recognized American artist because of the thousands of paintings, mostly of American life, he had generated during the years.
