Paul Detlefsen was a commercial artist of the mid to late 20th century, associated with the "Hollywood

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

 scene

Art world

The art world is composed of all the people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. Howard S. Becker describes it as "the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things,...

". He is known for his realistic depictions of serene, nostalgic scenes; his works were reproduced in a popular line of calendars and other prints.

Biography

Paul Detlefsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of a medical doctor. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Hollywood to build his reputation as a cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

. After not succeeding as an animator, he produced backdrops for films. He was nominated for the 17th Academy Awards

17th Academy Awards

The 17th Academy Awards marked the first time this awards ceremony was broadcast nationally on the ABC Radio network.Through the 1940s, the ceremony and academy rules continued to evolve into the form by which we know them today. This is the first year that the Best Picture category was limited to...

, along with coworkers John Crouse and Nathan Levinson, for their work on the 1944 film The Adventures of Mark Twain

The Adventures of Mark Twain

The Adventures of Mark Twain is a 1944 biographical film starring Fredric March as Samuel Clemens and Alexis Smith as his wife, Olivia...

. The only other films Detlefsen is credited for are The Horn Blows at Midnight

The Horn Blows at Midnight

The Horn Blows at Midnight is a comedy fantasy film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Jack Benny. Its biggest claim to fame, apart from its star, is its failure at the box office, and this fact was exploited often for laughs in Benny's popular radio and television comedy series The Jack Benny...

(1945), Escape in the Desert (1945), and Shadow of a Woman

Shadow of a Woman

Shadow of a Woman is an American drama film noir directed by Joseph Santley. The drama features Helmut Dantine and Andrea King. The film is based on the novel He Fell Down Dead written by Virginia Perdue.-Plot:...

(1946), but he spent 20 years at Warner Brothers Studios, eventually rising to be in charge of the art department that created matte

Matte painting

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...

 backdrops.

Detlefsen then shifted to a career in calendar artwork. His art was lithographed into calendars, reproductions, playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, mats for tables, and even four-foot wide wall murals. His first calendar, published in 1951, was "The Good Old Days", which focused on landscape art. In 1969, UPI estimated that 80% of all Americans had seen his work.

In 1964, Paul and his wife, Shelly, moved to Encinitas, California

Encinitas, California

Encinitas is a coastal beach city in San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego in North County and about south of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 59,518, up from 58,014 at the 2000 census. Encinitas is...

where Paul continued painting into the last few months of his life.