ARTIST: Edward T Vebell (Illinois, 1921-2018) NAME: Illustration - Steamboat Race YEAR: 1979 MEDIUM: gouache on board CONDITION: Excellent. SIGHT SIZE: 20 x 21 inches / 50 x 53 cm BOARD SIZE: 26 x 27 inches / 66 x 68 cm SIGNATURE: lower right NOTE: This artwork was originally published on the Fleetwood Commemorative Cover for Epic Events in American History series issued in 1985. Although legend and romance surround the era of the Clipper Ships and their races around the globe, no mode of transportation has so enthralled the American people as the steamboat -- especially the paddlewheelers, replete with gamblers and southern belles, that piled the Mississippi. For some fifty years steamboats, with the slender smokestacks and columned decks, carried trade and travellers up and down the mighty "Father of Waters," and along its giant tributaries. While cardsharks preyed on unwary plantation owners returning home from successful trading in New Orleans, there was money to be made by everyone from the frequent races between boats. Faster and faster the great paddlewheels churned: in 1815 it took 25 days to go from New Orleans to St. Louis; by 1853 the time was whittled down to four days, nine hours. The most fabled race of all took place in 1870 when the Robert E. Lee made the trip in three days, eighteen hours, fourteen minutes, defeating its rival the Natchez by over three hours. All America, and some of Europe, too, participated in the betting as telegraphs flashed reports of the progress of the two boats. Over ten thousand people lined the shore at Memphis as they passed. The most fabled race was, indeed, almost the last race. The expansion of the railroads after the Civil War doomed the steamboat to near extinction on inland waters, though its successors survive and flourish on the Great Lakes even today. PROVENANCE: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. CATEGORY: antique vintage painting AD: ART CONSIGNMENTS WANTED. CONTACT US SKU#: 117588 US Shipping $75 + insurance. BIOGRAPHY: Ed Vebell (1921-2018) is an American illustrator, veteran, and Olympic athlete who attended the Chicago Institute of Art before enlisting. While serving in the Army, he was a contributing artist for Stars & Stripes magazine, working side by side with Bill Mauldin. His second major appointment was as courtroom artist for the Nuremburg Trials; his haunting portrait of Hermann Gering can be viewed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Over the decades following the war, Vebell designed 16 circulated postage stamps for the US Postal Service, and enjoyed frequent commissions from Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and Time.