I find his work interesting and well-made. Take a look.
Monday, May 22, 2023
Ryan Morse, Painter-Illustrator
Ryan Morse (1988 - ), website here, is a Denver-based artist and illustrator with a bold, representational style.
I find his work interesting and well-made. Take a look.
Gallery
I find his work interesting and well-made. Take a look.
Monday, May 15, 2023
Harry Timmins, Prolific and Versatile Illustration
Harry Laverne Timmins (1887-1963) had a good run as an illustrator. That's because he was highly competent and versatile stylistically. Which was why he was prolific, keeping busy even during the Great Depression.
This versatility allowed his work to shine as illustration fashions changed, 1920-1940. On the other hand, his style was never distinctive -- it can be difficult to identify his work absent a signature. This helped him survive economically during hard times, while illustrators with more distinctive touches often fell out of fashion, their careers on the rocks. Perhaps this characteristic held Timmins below First Team illustration status, working for second-tier magazines and not the likes of the Saturday Evening Post.
When his magazine illustration began to fade in the 1940s, he moved to California and did work of some sort for the movie industry.
The primary Web source on Timmins is here, and includes a biography here.
Not included below are many illuatrations he made in the 1920s for automobile makers. I might present some of those in a future post.
Gallery
Story Illustration - This Week Magazine - 1935
I find this interesting because it includes two of Timmins' styles in one setting. The foreground features modeled features, the background has line-defined subjects and flat colors.
Goodyear Lawn Hose advertisement - 1920
This is very much of its time, as many advertisements of that vintage used lines and flat, non-modeled areas to create a scene.
Illustration for Arkansas Soft Pine advertisement - 1922
Around that time Timmins did this solidly-modeled painting. As best I can tell, he favored watercolor and other "thin" media such as ink washes, perhaps bolstered by tempera or gouache.
Story Illustration - 1930
He seems to have traveled to Paris at the end of the 1920s because he made a number of illustrations featuring Parisian café scenes.
Story Illustration - 1931
This illustration and the one below were made about the same time, but have different styles. This is very early '30s.
Story Illustration - 1931
And this is an example of what become the fashion by the mid-1930s.
Story Illustration - American Magazine - 1933
Another Paris café scene. Note that Timmins carefully captured even those typical café chairs. And the newspaper the man in the foreground is reading. Click on this to enlarge.
Story Illustration - Ladies' Home Journal - 1932
This reminds me of the work of Henry Raleigh.
Collier's cover - 7 May 1938
Story Illustration - Collier's - 1939
Now Timmins is creating well-modeled subjects is the mainline style of the day using thin media.
Story Illustration - MacLean's - 1947
A late story illustration. Timmins could create dramatic scenes as well as static ones.
This versatility allowed his work to shine as illustration fashions changed, 1920-1940. On the other hand, his style was never distinctive -- it can be difficult to identify his work absent a signature. This helped him survive economically during hard times, while illustrators with more distinctive touches often fell out of fashion, their careers on the rocks. Perhaps this characteristic held Timmins below First Team illustration status, working for second-tier magazines and not the likes of the Saturday Evening Post.
When his magazine illustration began to fade in the 1940s, he moved to California and did work of some sort for the movie industry.
The primary Web source on Timmins is here, and includes a biography here.
Not included below are many illuatrations he made in the 1920s for automobile makers. I might present some of those in a future post.
I find this interesting because it includes two of Timmins' styles in one setting. The foreground features modeled features, the background has line-defined subjects and flat colors.
This is very much of its time, as many advertisements of that vintage used lines and flat, non-modeled areas to create a scene.
Around that time Timmins did this solidly-modeled painting. As best I can tell, he favored watercolor and other "thin" media such as ink washes, perhaps bolstered by tempera or gouache.
He seems to have traveled to Paris at the end of the 1920s because he made a number of illustrations featuring Parisian café scenes.
This illustration and the one below were made about the same time, but have different styles. This is very early '30s.
And this is an example of what become the fashion by the mid-1930s.
Another Paris café scene. Note that Timmins carefully captured even those typical café chairs. And the newspaper the man in the foreground is reading. Click on this to enlarge.
This reminds me of the work of Henry Raleigh.
Now Timmins is creating well-modeled subjects is the mainline style of the day using thin media.
A late story illustration. Timmins could create dramatic scenes as well as static ones.
Monday, May 8, 2023
More C.C. Beall Illustrations
I last wrote here about illustrator C.C. (Cecil Calvert) Beall. Since then, more biographical information has appeared on the Internet. Also, more images of his work.
Illustration Magazine's Issue 72 (May 2021) included an article about Beall. It can be accessed online here. Its preview link includes images of Beall's 1930s temporary work as an illustrator of "pulp" magazine covers.
Below are examples of Beall's non-pulp work. Click on some to enlarge
Gallery
I included this Collier's cover in my previous Beall post, but for the above image I cleaned up the aged colors. I really like this illustration. Especially the girl's face.
Another Collier's cover, from nearly two years later.
Art from a 1928 Essex automobile advertisement.
One of a series of 1923 Maxwell House advertisements.
An unusual, for Beall, Collier's cover.
Beall illustrated several government posters during World War 2.
Wartime story illustration.
Story illustration in Collier's, 29 May 1948.
Unidentified Story illustration.
Illustration Magazine's Issue 72 (May 2021) included an article about Beall. It can be accessed online here. Its preview link includes images of Beall's 1930s temporary work as an illustrator of "pulp" magazine covers.
Below are examples of Beall's non-pulp work. Click on some to enlarge
Monday, May 1, 2023
Walter Biggs' "Impressionist" Illustrations
Walter Biggs (1886-1968) was an important Amercan illustrator whose peak career years were from the late 1910s to well into the 1930s. In 2012 I posted about him here. A brief Wikipedia entry is here. My earlier post has links concerning him.
Biggs' early work was more hard-edge conventional than later. By the early 1920s his work became more painterly, in that edges were softened and brushwork moved to the fore. The style was "impressionist" in the American Impressionism sense.
The images below are some of his best works in that style.
Gallery
Illustration for International Silver - 1924
This is a better version than the image I used in my previous Biggs post. I like it very much.
Couple on the porch - no date
Biggs was from Virginia, and liked to paint Southern scenes.
"He Had His Wish. The Hands of Time Had Turned Back" - Harper's Magazine - August 1919
This was about the time Bigg's style was moving more strongly towards impressionism.
The Long Skirts -- A title found on the Internet, but perhaps not original.
This appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, April 1933.
Soldiers at the Door - Cosmopilitan Magazine, 1937
An American Civil War story scene.
Family picnic scene - c.1934
I don't now where or when this appeared. Media are watercolor and gouache.
Biggs' early work was more hard-edge conventional than later. By the early 1920s his work became more painterly, in that edges were softened and brushwork moved to the fore. The style was "impressionist" in the American Impressionism sense.
The images below are some of his best works in that style.
This is a better version than the image I used in my previous Biggs post. I like it very much.
Biggs was from Virginia, and liked to paint Southern scenes.
This was about the time Bigg's style was moving more strongly towards impressionism.
This appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, April 1933.
An American Civil War story scene.
I don't now where or when this appeared. Media are watercolor and gouache.
Monday, April 24, 2023
Hubert Vos Footnote: A Painting within a Painting
My previous post, here, failed to note an interesting detail in its featured painting.
According to Hubert Vos' Wikipedia entry, he sometimes made copies of his paintings while living in Asia -- one for his client, and one to take with him. Evidence of that is suggested in "Harmonie" (1910), as can be seen below.
Gallery
Harmonie - 1910
In the center-left a painting is depicted, near furniture and vases from Asia. The Wikipedia entry mentions that Vos lived and worked for several years in China and Korea, so clearly he brought from there various objets d'art along with some duplicate paintings.
Portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi - 1905
The painting-within-a-painting is clearly this one.
According to Hubert Vos' Wikipedia entry, he sometimes made copies of his paintings while living in Asia -- one for his client, and one to take with him. Evidence of that is suggested in "Harmonie" (1910), as can be seen below.
In the center-left a painting is depicted, near furniture and vases from Asia. The Wikipedia entry mentions that Vos lived and worked for several years in China and Korea, so clearly he brought from there various objets d'art along with some duplicate paintings.
The painting-within-a-painting is clearly this one.
Monday, April 17, 2023
I finally found Hubert Vos' "Harmonie" !!
In 2011 I was in the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu and glanced into an art gallery that was there at the time (long gone now). Against the far wall was a large (72 x 44 1/4 in., 182.9 x 112.4 cm.), impressive painting. I took two reference photos, one of which is below.
Unfortunatly, I failed to make note of its title and who painted it. I regretted that failure when I returned home to Seattle, and tried to research the information. Searching failed because the idea that the artist was Austrian stuck in my head.
Recently, I was going through my miscellaneous images file searching for blog subjects. The image of the Alice Barney painting shown in the Gallery below seemed interesting, so I looked for more paintings by the artist. Eureka!! After all those years, the painting I saw at the Royal Hawaiian popped up:
Harmonie - 1910 - via Christie's
It was by Dutch painter Hubert Vos - né Josephus Hubertus Vos (1855-1935), Wikipedia entry here, who lived at various times in England, France, China, Korea, Hawaii, and America. The subject is presumably a large room in his home in Rhode Island, though the ceiling seems unreasonably high (artistic license?). In the background are Chinese and Western objects.
Vos was a skilled representational painter, as can be seen in "Harmonie" above and the paintings below.
Gallery
Woman at Piano - c.1914
This seems to be a different corner of the same room, the piano having been moved. The pianist's hair is dark, not blonde. The ceiling is lower and the Asiatic art not much in evidence. Note Vos' skill depicting the wooden floor, the same as in the previous image.
Portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi - 1905
One of his works from the Far East.
Rome buildings - 1923
Another interesting painting due in part to its cropping of the subject matter.
Alice Barney in White Satin - 1894
Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931), Wikipedia entry here, was an artist and promoter of culture in Washington, D.C.
Unfortunatly, I failed to make note of its title and who painted it. I regretted that failure when I returned home to Seattle, and tried to research the information. Searching failed because the idea that the artist was Austrian stuck in my head.
Recently, I was going through my miscellaneous images file searching for blog subjects. The image of the Alice Barney painting shown in the Gallery below seemed interesting, so I looked for more paintings by the artist. Eureka!! After all those years, the painting I saw at the Royal Hawaiian popped up:
It was by Dutch painter Hubert Vos - né Josephus Hubertus Vos (1855-1935), Wikipedia entry here, who lived at various times in England, France, China, Korea, Hawaii, and America. The subject is presumably a large room in his home in Rhode Island, though the ceiling seems unreasonably high (artistic license?). In the background are Chinese and Western objects.
Vos was a skilled representational painter, as can be seen in "Harmonie" above and the paintings below.
This seems to be a different corner of the same room, the piano having been moved. The pianist's hair is dark, not blonde. The ceiling is lower and the Asiatic art not much in evidence. Note Vos' skill depicting the wooden floor, the same as in the previous image.
One of his works from the Far East.
Another interesting painting due in part to its cropping of the subject matter.
Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931), Wikipedia entry here, was an artist and promoter of culture in Washington, D.C.
Monday, April 10, 2023
Charles Atamian's Beach Scenes
Charles Garabed Atamian (1872-1947), of Armenian descent, was born in Turkey, educated in Constantinople and Italy. For a few years he was chief designer at a Constantinople porcelain works, but fled to Paris in 1897. His French career included book illustration as well as painting. This information and some more can be found here.
His paintings included many beach scenes, and some of those are presented below. These were mostly or entirely made in the Vendée at Saint-Gilles-Croix de Vie, a fishing harbor and resort town not far from Nantes. A lengthy plage extends south from the town.
His style is free, and some paintings are like sketchy studies, though they are signed. They seem to be from the 1930s.
Gallery
Contemplation
Les enfents et le château de sable - Children and Sand Castle
Playing on the Beach
Promenade on the Beach
Lecteur - Reader
Reverie
At the Beach
Unlike the other paintings, this is in the form of a snapshot of a friend, or perhaps the artist's wife. Very sketchy, but signed.
His paintings included many beach scenes, and some of those are presented below. These were mostly or entirely made in the Vendée at Saint-Gilles-Croix de Vie, a fishing harbor and resort town not far from Nantes. A lengthy plage extends south from the town.
His style is free, and some paintings are like sketchy studies, though they are signed. They seem to be from the 1930s.
Unlike the other paintings, this is in the form of a snapshot of a friend, or perhaps the artist's wife. Very sketchy, but signed.
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