The artist behind Butch, Smokey Bear, and some of the most memorable commercial illustration of mid-century America
Sometimes a single playing card opens the door to a much larger story.
That is exactly what happened for me with the work of Albert Staehle.
I first came to know Staehle through Butch, the mischievous black-and-white Cocker Spaniel who appears on a remarkable series of advertising playing cards produced by Brown & Bigelow. But the deeper I went into those cards, the more I realized that Butch was only one part of a much larger body of work.
Staehle’s illustrations appeared on magazine covers, advertising campaigns, billboards, calendars, posters, playing cards, and countless pieces of American commercial art. He created the first finished poster image of Smokey Bear, designed one of the memorable posters for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and turned his own dog into a nationally recognized character.
And once you learn his style, you begin to see it everywhere.
From Commercial Artist to Animal Illustrator
Albert Staehle was born in Munich, Germany, in 1899 and came to the United States as a teenager. Art already ran in the family—both his father and maternal grandfather were artists—and Staehle studied at the John Wicker School of Art in Detroit and the Art Students League of New York.
His career developed during an era when illustration was everywhere. Before photography became dominant in advertising, companies depended on commercial artists to make products memorable. Magazine pages, billboards, posters, calendars, and store displays all needed artwork that could catch someone’s attention quickly.
Staehle became particularly good at doing exactly that.
A 1937 poster competition helped establish his reputation as an animal illustrator. His winning design showed a cow feeding her calf from a bottle of Borden’s milk. The success of the image helped establish Staehle as an artist who could give animals personality without turning them completely into cartoons.
That ability would become one of the trademarks of his career.
More Than an Animal Artist
Although animals became a major part of Staehle’s work, one of his best-known early pieces had a very different subject.
For the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Staehle created a colorful promotional poster showing an official female fair guide in a blue uniform, smiling and raising one arm against a bright background of fireworks. Behind her rise the fair’s famous Trylon and Perisphere.
It is a useful reminder that Staehle was not simply “the dog artist.”
He was a commercial illustrator who understood composition, color, advertising, and perhaps most importantly, how to create an image that could tell its story almost immediately.
In fact, an account of Staehle’s working method described him briefly showing a proposed poster to a client and then asking the client to describe what they had seen. If the idea could not be understood in those few seconds, the design needed more work.
That philosophy makes a great deal of sense when looking at his later work. His images rarely need much explanation.
Smokey Bear
In 1944, another Staehle illustration helped introduce one of the most recognizable public-service characters in American history.
The Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention campaign needed an animal symbol of its own after temporarily using Disney’s Bambi. A bear was selected, and artist Albert Staehle was brought in to create the finished campaign artwork. His first Smokey Bear poster showed the ranger-hatted bear pouring a bucket of water over a campfire.
The message was simple: Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires.
The now-famous slogan “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires” came later, in 1947. Later artists, particularly Forest Service artist Rudy Wendelin, continued to develop Smokey’s appearance, but Staehle’s artwork was there at the beginning.
And Then Came Butch
For playing-card collectors, however, the name Albert Staehle often leads somewhere else entirely. It leads to Butch.
In 1944, The Saturday Evening Post published a Staehle cover showing a mischievous black-and-white Cocker Spaniel getting into trouble with wartime ration materials. The response was strong enough that the dog became a recurring character. Staehle eventually acquired his own Cocker Spaniel and registered him as Cover Boy Butch, giving the illustrated character a real-life model.
Butch became a star in his own right.
The Saturday Evening Post credits Staehle with 26 covers, 25 of them featuring Butch. Butch later appeared extensively in The American Weekly as well.
But the story did not stop at magazine covers.
Butch appeared on calendars, posters, toys, figurines, puzzles, ink blotters—and, most importantly for this collection, playing cards.
Beginning around 1949 and continuing into the mid-1960s, Brown & Bigelow used Staehle’s Butch illustrations on playing cards, calendars, and other promotional products. The playing cards could then be customized for businesses, which means the same Butch illustration might turn up advertising a pharmacy, a hardware company, a restaurant, an equipment supplier, or a business in a town hundreds of miles away from the next example.
And that is where this story becomes especially interesting to me.
One Dog, Hundreds of Businesses
A Butch playing card is not just a picture of a dog.
On the front is Staehle’s artwork. On the back—or sometimes incorporated into the card—is the name of a business that may have disappeared decades ago.
That creates two completely different research paths.
One leads back to Albert Staehle, Butch, Brown & Bigelow, American illustration, and advertising history.
The other leads into the history of the individual advertiser: the family who owned the business, the town where it operated, the building it occupied, what it sold, and sometimes why the company disappeared.
That combination is exactly what makes these cards such interesting little pieces of history.
A card that was once given away as advertising can become a doorway into an artist’s career, a local business, a community, and a moment in time.
Staehle’s Wider Advertising World
Butch was only one resident of Staehle’s animal world.
His commercial work included colorful cats for Carter’s Ink, the swan used in Swan Soap advertising, wildlife for Imperial Whiskey, and illustrations for companies including Shell Oil, Mobiloil, Arrow Shirts, Western Electric, and others. He also produced billboard advertising for major national companies.
Animals in Staehle’s work rarely feel like props.
They look annoyed. Curious. Embarrassed. Proud. Caught in the act. And very often, guilty.
Staehle frequently worked from live animals and photographs, studying the expressions and behavior that made them recognizable. His illustrations exaggerate just enough to give the animal a personality while still leaving it unmistakably an animal.
That balance may be part of why his work has held up so well.
Why Albert Staehle Is Here at Raini’s Crossroads
Albert Staehle represents many of the things I enjoy most about collecting.
Artwork connects to advertising. Advertising connects to businesses. Businesses connect to towns and families. Playing cards connect to magazines, calendars, posters, and popular culture. And before long, one little card has taken us somewhere completely unexpected.
This page will serve as the starting point for my continuing research into Staehle’s work, especially Butch and the Brown & Bigelow advertising cards. As the collection grows, I will add links here to individual cards, advertisers, discoveries, and longer stories.
Explore Albert Staehle at the Crossroads
Butch
The story of Staehle’s famous Cocker Spaniel and the artwork that made him a national character.
Butch Advertising Cards
Individual cards from the collection and the businesses that advertised with them.
Brown & Bigelow
The company that turned artwork by Staehle and many other illustrators into calendars, playing cards, advertising specialties, and collectibles.
Smokey Bear
Staehle’s role in the earliest years of one of America’s best-known public-service campaigns.
More Albert Staehle Artwork
Posters, magazine covers, advertising, and other pieces encountered along the way.
Help Add to the Story
Research like this is rarely finished.
If you have an Albert Staehle or Butch item I haven’t seen, information about one of the businesses featured on a Butch advertising card, family history connected to an advertiser, corrections, photographs, catalogs, or another piece of the story, I’d love to hear from you.
Sometimes the smallest detail on the back of a playing card is the piece that opens the next door.