"Striking it Rich in the Klondike" Illustration by Charles J. Andres

For Argosy Magazine, 1950

The miner in the center of the picture has just discovered gold and is whooping it up with a few locals who want to share his new found wealth.

If this picture looks familiar, you may have seen it in Playboy Magazine in March 1999, on pages 66 - 67. This painting was originally used by Argosy Magazine in 1950 to illustrate a story about a gold miner who struck it rich in the Klondike River valley in Alaska. While the painting itself is a great fictional rendition of what a raucous good time should look like, note that the painting only contains two 'colors' -- red and black. This was a low cost way to print 'pulp' magazines, and the artist needed to work only in 2 colors, actually 3, since white comes from the paper..

In 1999, Winston Smith, a collage artist who works by scanning in old art and compositing them together to create something new used this piece for Playboy as an illustration for a love story about the Old West.

See the letter about this Playboy pubished in November 1999...