San Diego Man’s Bigger-Than-Life Ad Art Has Been Seen by Millions

Marv Gunderson is not an ordinary artist. His canvas--actually smooth plywood--is about half the size of an Olympic swimming pool and his brushes are designed to paint a house.

Gunderson’s one-man art shows play to millions of viewers in major U.S. cities, where his down-home, country-style paintings command up to $10,000 each. In the Madison Avenue, multibillion-dollar advertising industry, he’s making his mark one stroke at a time.

The 67-year-old painter landed an exclusive contract with Marlboro, the tobacco giant, in 1973 to paint Western-style 42- by 90-foot “giant spectacular” billboards. Today Gunderson paints 35 billboards a year, each taking approximately 10 days, which generate a six-figure income annually for his Sorrento Valley shop, the Outdoor Media Group.

Annual Sales of $2.5 Million

What began as a $45,000-per-year, one-man shop has now blossomed into an annual $2.5-million, 32-employee business. In addition to Marlboro, Gunderson’s client list past and present includes: McDonald’s, Budweiser, Jack in the Box, Mitsubishi, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, the Dunes Hotel, United Airlines and several major builders in Southern California.

Gunderson’s company was also hired by Flying Colors, a San Francisco special events company, to design and paint the 20-by-68-foot billboard for the 1988 Super Bowl. The billboard, which stood at the entrance to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, featured a helmet from each of the competing teams and the Vince Lombardi trophy, all of which was covered by 65,000 sparklers.

Moved Like Puzzles

Although none of his Marlboro canvases currently are showing in San Diego, they’re displayed in cities from Anaheim to Palm Beach. The billboards are painted with oil colors on one huge canvas, broken down like puzzle pieces into 88 manageable segments, then shipped to their destinations.

Because of the logistical problems with painting the billboards--weather, erratic work schedule and poor light--Gunderson has developed a rotating system where each pictorial plays in a city for three months then is dismantled, shipped and reconstructed at a new location. The signs eventually come back to his shop, where he whitewashes them and begins again. One canvas lasts up to five years.

Success didn’t come easily to Gunderson. He spent 20 years in Los Angeles and San Diego working for Pacific Outdoor Advertising Co. (it was later acquired by Gannett Outdoor Corp., Inc. one the nation’s largest billboard companies) before deciding to start his own business.

As an apprentice for Gannett, Gunderson said he worked hard to glean all he could from the experts, sketching and painting everything conceiveable.

“I did fruits, lips, legs, cars, cattle . . . everything imaginable,” Gunderson said. “After years and years of painting, one gets a feel for the objects--their size, color and texture.”

While working for Gannett, Gunderson attended several art schools in Los Angeles and after 10 years earned a fine arts degree.

“I stayed up many late nights studying,” he said. “I worked full-time and went to school in the evenings. Many nights, I’d get only four or five hours of sleep. It was tough, but worth it, because I progressively got real good.”

Broke Out on His Own

In the late 1960s, Gannett sent Gunderson to its San Diego branch, where he headed the company’s art studio. After a couple years, the San Diego shop closed and Gunderson was asked to continue his work back in Los Angeles. At that point, Gunderson decided to go out on his own. He stayed in San Diego, and within months had opened a 400-square-foot one-man shop in La Mesa.

Business was slow for the first two years, but because of his expertise and credibility, Gunderson was introduced by his former boss to representatives of Chicago’s Leo Burnett Advertising Agency. They offered him the Marlboro contract, which they said would be negotiated every four years.

Gunderson has been at it ever since and said he’s never regretted his decision. “That first year with Marlboro was tough,” he said. “I barely broke even. I had to go out and buy two huge easels and three hydraulic lifts. Then there’s the cost for shipping and loading. All that stuff added up, but once I had all the essential equipment, things started to flow.”

After the first year working for Marlboro, Gunderson said he realized he needed a bigger shop and bought land in Sorrento Valley, where he built his current 4,440-square-foot studio.

“Things haven’t always been easy,” Gunderson said. “The contract with Marlboro gained us a reputation; it’s been a good tool. It’s put us on the map. Ever since then, business has been on a steady climb.”

Works Exclusively for Marlboro

Gunderson’s contract with Marlboro dictates that he paint signs for them exclusively. All the other billboard work is done by Gunderson’s assistants and under his watchful eye.

“There is no such thing as not perfect. The art work has to be perfect,” Gunderson said as he looked at the half-painted pictorial of a cowboy smoking a cigarette. “Texture--it’s all in the texture. If it’s leather, you have to make it look like leather so that people will say, ‘hey, that’s leather.’ It has to look authentic.”

For Gunderson, finding talented artists who could do quality work on a large scale hasn’t been easy. He said he searches for perfection and dependability.

“I ran an ad asking for artists who had a good background in drawing and painting from a model,” he said. “Four or five guys applied, and they were either terrible or undependable. Sure, a lot of them could draw and paint on a smaller scale, but when it came time to work on the larger canvases, their perception became distorted.”

After a large turnover in artists, he finally hired two, Dennis Walsh, an apprentice and Soo Bong Lee, an old friend he took out of retirement. He said both men are “real good artists and very dependable.”

Traces the Image

To get the right proportions on the spectaculars, Gunderson uses a Marlboro artist’s rendition and projects its image onto a blank canvas, then with a charcoal pencil, he traces the lines.

Although his company is expanding, Gunderson tries to keep it in the family. His three sons and wife hold major company positions and many of his other employees have known and worked with him for about 20 years.

His oldest son Jon, 36, is president of Outdoor Media Group. Bill, 31, is the superintendent art director and Chuck, 25, is the account executive in sales. His wife, Lucy, is their all-around Girl Friday and keeps things together.

Gunderson’s clientele is growing and he needs more studio space, so he is planning by year’s end to move and buy a bigger shop in Rancho California, where he will build a 11,800-square-foot studio.

He attributes his success to “honesty and punctuality.

“If you promise anybody anything, be sure you produce the goods as promised,” he said. “I believe in working hard so you can play hard.”