Paul Detlefsen, Legendary Matte Painter & Legendary Model Railroader

My reading last week saw the name Paul Detlefsen pop up. A few years back Vince told me about a Paul Detlefsen print his father owned, and this lead into a whole discussion about Mr. Detlefsen's model railroad. Yes, this artist who as NZPete notes as one of Hollywood's greatest matte painters, and Wikipedia claims that by 1969 80% of Americans had seen some example of his artwork, was also a great model railroader, probably as great, if not greater than, John Allen, and true to form, there is no mention of this in Wikipedia. 

I briefly touched on Mr. Detlefsen's model railroad back in 2016 in a post about wordless cover art on the model railroad magazines of the '60s. But go deeper and take a look at the story The ride of your life! by Linn Westcott and John Allen in the December '61 issue of Model Railroader about Mr. Detlefsen's layout. As for layout stats, it's in O scale with 1200 feet of track and 48 inch radius curves. This thing was big. And, I'd argue, with scenery possibly more spectacular than that seen on the Gorre & Daphetid, which was the high water mark in layouts at the time. Although, given that Paul Detlefsen and John Allen were contemporaries, and Mr. Allen's layout was widely published in the model railroading press, I wonder how much influence, if any, one had on the other.

Two things in the story that jumped out at me:

… Paul doesn't paint a rock or a mountain or trainshed roof. He paints the light that falls onto these things and then bounces to his eye. [Italics are Linn Westcott's]

None of the models such as those in the industrial district are modelled to exact scale. Instead Paul tried to get a credible visual effect but used distortion freely to make the most of crowded space.

There's no analysis about how to implement those strategies by mere mortals in either this story or in future stories, as there were no future stories. Maybe that Dec '61 story is all there is about the layout. Some more investigation is called for.

Paul Detlefsen is the gentleman in the dark jacket*

Apparently the layout was built in Paul Detlefsen's Southern California home. At the time the article was written Mr. Detlefsen had moved to Hawaii, and the house was empty, except for the layout. In the Mar '62 issue of MR, it's reported that the family who eventually bought the house gave the layout to the Travel Town Museum in Los Angeles' Griffith Park. I'm hoping to get out to Pasadena in the fall, and maybe I can make a side trip to Los Angeles to see for myself what's at the museum.

*That image of the models and matte used in the RKO logo was sourced and snipped from NZPete's Matte Shot. Paul Detlefsen created the cloud backdrop used in that famous logo.