In 1894 John La Gatta was born in Naples, Italy. He immigrated to the United Sates at a young age with his father who was a jewelry designer. Since childhood he had always been interested in art. La Gatta was trained at The Parsons School of Design, in New York. After graduating he used his skills for commercial art. La Gatta created covers for all the top magazines of the time including Life and The Saturday Evening Post. He was famous for his beautiful work in oil and pencil. His style was very romantic, using a lush color pallet. This painting is titled "Swimming Couple". It was painted for the August 1949 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine. It was commissioned to accompany the short story “Beautiful, But with Stars in Her Eyes” by Don M. Mankiewicz. "Swimming Couple" was done in oil and measures 30" x 36".