You Can Be Sure of Shell, Motorists Prefer Shell

Jesse Sylvester “Vet” Anderson was an American artist, animator and graphic designer. He was self-taught as an artist and started working in the art department of a Detroit Newspaper contributing illustrations to various periodicals. He had a habit of wearing his military uniform (in 1898 he enlisted in the US Military during the Spanish American War) to work, claiming it was his only suite of clothes. This earned him the nick name “Vet” (Veteran), which he subsequently incorporated into his signature. His artistic career and life took him to New York, London, Paris and finally back to New York again. In 1935 Shell Oil’s publicity director Jack Beddington commissioned Anderson to create a commercial stone lithographic poster for the “You can be sure of Shell” and “Motorists Prefer Shell” series. His graphic design of moving pistons with an oil line and an automobile in the backdrop is modernistic and very clear in its message “Motorists Prefer Shell”. Printing House Waterlow Edition Nr. 430