David wrote a terrific post about Martha Sawyers on his excellent blog, Illustration Art.
Fast forward three decades... here's the most current work I was able to find by Martha Sawyers, from Readers Digest Condensed Books, 1964.
The editors must have felt Sawyers was a natural choice for this version of the famous bible story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus.
Having travelled extensively in these regions, and being considered a specialist in illustrating the people of Asia, Sawyers was no doubt completely comfortable with the assignment.
To research the people, places and costuming she would have had to look no further than those bulging portfolios of paintings and sketches mentioned by her husband in the American Artist article from April '59 - the accumulated wealth of that trip through all those many Eastern countries a year earlier.
Its interesting to see where one ends up when one "follows the bend of the river"...
In the early days of the 20th century, a young girl in Cuero, Texas, fascinated by a book called "Religion of the Far East" began a life-long journey of artistic and cultural discovery...
... a journey that lead, six decades later, to an assignment illustrating the story that is the centerpiece of Western religion.
Martha Sawyers, born in 1902, died in 1988.
* My Martha Sawyers Flickr set.
* These posts have been collected into one article on Female Illustrators of the Mid-20th Century
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