***I think the term “illustrator” could be usefully used to refer to those people who produce artistic works for the purpose of having those works reproduced.****
Many thousands of paintings were used for magazine covers from the 1930s through the 1950s. They were considered worthless and could not even be sold at auction so they were thrown away and many were burned. Again, THEY WERE WORTHLESS!
Now if you find one it will be worth $40,000.
Another interesting thing, back in the depression (1929-1940) many artists had jobs painting these magazine covers.
The Government got into the act and decided that any “real” artist would get government backing to do paintings in post offices and gov’t buildings.
The rule was the artist MUST NOT do paintings for hire such as magazine covers.
Another interesting thing, many NY artists worked as illustrators for magazine covers. When the magazines decided to go to photography around 1970, the artists were then out of business, so they put on the big hat, went west and became Cowboy artists.
There was a lot of dreck produced, as well as some good stuff. Further, since the paintings wouldn't have generally had to last more than a month, I wouldn't be surprised if, in many cases, the paints and materials were less archival than would be used in paintings that were designed to be of lasting value. Further, while I haven't examined paintings that were painted for the purpose of reproduction, I have seen some pen-and-ink original cartoons. Many of them included parts that were cut and pasted over other parts. I suspect few art buyers, even today, would be interested in buying an obscure cut-and-paste work by an obscure artist. Although some of the better works and artists from the middle of the last century have become well-known, I don't think such a thing would have happened without some major and unforeseen changes in imaging technologies. If a magazine was going to print 100,000 copies, I don't think anyone would have expected that the cover artwork would ever be seen by anyone who didn't happen to view one of those 100,000 copies. It was only the fact that technologies have allowed images to become immortal that has given their original representations lasting value.
Incidentally, I suspect that the idea of paintings as being a transitory work product goes back centuries, to the theater. Some productions, from what I understand, featured some rather wonderfully painted scenery, but since the scenery produced for a production existed for no other purpose than to be used in that production, the scenery would generally be junked once the production was complete. I'm sure a lot of the scenery that's been produced, even for quality productions, was relative dreck, and some of it may have been good, but even most of that would have been junked with the rest.