A singularly antipatico family and their mutts glaring at us during dinner.
Assignations and intrigue in immediate postwar Vienna.
I don't suppose "streetwalker" would be an apt description out in the countryside.
A lonely patron nursing his beer.
One can only speculate what he was doing a dozen years prior to this moment.
He's called a "bagnino" in Italian. You had to pay him if you would like to rent a beach chair, umbrella, whatever.
Old beachgoers from Germany. It's a quick trip over the Brenner Pass to Venice.
Young beachgoers from Germany, probably came by motorbike.
Euroguys spent more time with their precious locks than their female counterparts.
Brits at the Lido.
Local or bathers from elsewhere in Italy.
All the drawings were done on ordinary Italian air mail paper using a Rapidograph pen.
This little icon was drawn many years after 1955 and represents an impression of the natural and vibrant beauty of young Swedish women we observed in midsummer.
Another and more serious representation of beauty graces the grounds next to Stockholm's picturesque Town Hall. It's the work of Carl Milles who taught sculpture for twenty years at Cranbrook in Michigan.
Stockholm in July of 1955.
Young Swedish beauty shopping for groceries.
Mother and child in matching summer attire.
Mother and child on bicycle.
Goteborg, Sweden, a port city where drunkeness is to be expected. Despite a nationwide prohibition of sorts, intoxicated men of all ages were to be seen lurching about after dark.
Just about this time of year in late June and early July, we drove our plucky little VW Beetle to Scandinavia north from Flensburg in Germany through a sandy bit of land that looked a lot like Cape Cod bordered on two sides by the sea. It was a common site 50 years ago to see Danes lying by the side of the highway watching cars go by. We always waved, and they waved back, smiling.
This painting in gouache, or opaque watercolor, was done on an ordinary piece of chipboard from sketches I had made in my notebook and the drawing, above.
Sketches from my notebook.
We were amazed how young Swedes appeared so healthy and handsome. This is an idealized version of a young couple.
More sketches
