In the wake of yesterday’s post about the MetLife brochures, folks were asking whether the art on those might be original Schulz drawings. The answer is almost certainly not. While Sparky drew product art in the early days, by the time MetLife hooked up with Peanuts his art efforts were focused almost solely on the art for the strip. There have been a number of other artists who were allowed to create Peanuts art for other uses – ads, greeting cards, magazine covers, and so forth. Digital technology made it ever easy to take bits from existing Schulz drawings and build images around it.
Tom Everhart is the most recognized of these artists. While plenty of Peanuts fans are aware of his fine art paintings and prints, fewer are aware that he’s done various bits of commercial Peanuts art, including significant work for MetLife.
And just so you know, no, the Schulz signature is not proof that a given piece is pure original Schulz.
