About John Falter

John Philip Falter (February 28, 1910 – May 20, 1982), more commonly known as John Falter, was an American artist best known for his many cover paintings for The Saturday Evening Post.

After graduating from high school in 1928, Falter studied at the Kansas City Art Institute where he met and became friends with R. G. Harris, Emery Clarke, and Richard E. Lyon. He won a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York City but lasted only one month there due to his fear of his fellow students, many of whom were avowed Communists. This was all too new for the small-town Falter, who fled and immediately looked for work as an illustrator.^{[citation needed]} In the evenings, he took courses at the Grand Central School of Art above Grand Central Terminal. At this time in the Great Depression, when most young artists had difficulty finding work, Falter began illustrating covers for pulp magazines.

He opened a studio in New Rochelle, New York, which had long been a colony for illustrators, including such artists as Frederic Remington and Norman Rockwell. Within a few years, his three Kansas City Art Institute friends Harris, Clarke, and Lyon had moved to New Rochelle to share a studio with Falter and launch their careers as freelance illustrators. Falter recalled, “Rockwell was our inspiration then. I didn’t meet him until years later. We would hear that Rockwell had been out on the street. and we’d all rush out and hunt for him. If they’d tell us that he had looked in a shop window, we’d look in the same window trying to absorb what he looked at by osmosis.” Wikipedia