Mac Conner, a prodigious illustrator whose realistic, colorful and often dramatic paintings for major magazines and advertisers helped lend a distinctive look to postwar popular culture, died on Sept. 26 at his home in Manhattan. He was 105.

His death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman.

Mr. Conner thrived as an artist from the late 1940s to the early ’60s, when magazines still prized illustrations for short stories, and advertising agencies on Madison Avenue valued artwork over photography to pitch clients’ products.

Mr. Conner’s illustrations , largely in gouache, appeared in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook and Woman’s Day, and in ads for United Air Lines , Armco Steel, Blue Bell denim and many other companies.

Mr. Conner said he wanted to tell a story in all of his work, but he had a pragmatic assessment of its ultimate value. “ You don’t give a damn whether it’s hanging on the wall or is put into the trash afterward,” he told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2015.