Today’s menus both have covers painted by Gordon Fraser Gillespie (1891-1965), an artist who worked on commission to CP starting in 1913 and eventually became a full-time CP artist. In 1948, he was placed in charge of all commercial art for the railroad. We’ve previously seen a 1931 dining car menu advertising Alaska cruises whose cover painting is unsigned but looks like Gillespie’s style.
Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.
The first menu is from the Chung Collection and advertises the Empress of Australia‘s “sixth annual around the world cruise.” This cruise lasted from December 1928 through March 1929 and visited dozens of cities. A painting on the back cover shows the Empress and is signed “Gillespie.” This breakfast menu was used on a CP dining car.
Click image to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.
The second menu is from my own collection and features the swimming pool at Lake Louise. A painting on the back shows the Chateau Lake Louise and is signed “Gillespie.” The undated lunch menu was also used on a dining car.
Both of these menus appear to show broad brush strokes or the appearance of being painted on a stucco wall. I suspect this effect was added after the paintings themselves, as as a few days ago we saw another menu cover that had the same effect even though it was painted by a different artist.