“Graduation Day” is emblematic of mid-century American Illustration.
But the real story of this storytelling work is that it embodies the lost art of portrait painting and graphic design.
Alex
Ross borrows on the classical tradition and flaunts his skills as a
narrative painter. In “Graduation Day”, he paints a complex composition
involving at least thirteen portraits. The subjects are beautifully
rendered and lit. They are set against a dark grey background and jump
off the surface at the viewer. The composition is complexly designed.
The future graduate in the red jacket engaging with a girl photographer
is a compositional device that leads the viewer's eye to the main
subject - a father congratulating his son on graduating from medical
school. Creating art that relies on facial expressions and body gestures
is a talent absent in contemporary art. Why? It’s very hard to do and
takes years and training and practice to get it right. Despite Alex
Ross's folksy subject matter, this work is a high example of naturalism
and representation by an important member of the Golden Age of American
Illustration.
Signed lower right

Born in the town of Dunfermline, Scotland, Alexander Sharpe Ross
(1908-1990) moved with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911.
After attending Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Ross
moved to New York and joined the Charles E. Cooper Studio, where he
worked among such notable illustrators as Ward Brackett, Stevan Dohanos,
J. Frederick Smith, and Jon Whitcomb.

Good Housekeeping magazine frequently featured Ross's artwork on
their covers throughout the 1940s, while Ross was also completing
commissions for some of the most popular magazines of the day, including
The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, Collier's, Woman's
Home Companion, and Reader's Digest.