Book Review: John Harris, Beyond the Horizon

Not long ago I posted on English SciFi illustrator John Harris. A week or so later, I received an email from someone at Titan Books, publisher of a new book about Harris' art (some book links are here and here). If I was interested, they would send me a review copy. I decided the price (free) was right, so I was interested, the book arrived, and the review starts here:

The book is not thick, but the pages are large -- good for looking at some of the images that range in size from near-thumbnails to two-page spreads. My best guess is that its intended audience is science fiction fans who appreciate cover art on the books they buy. Illustration artists and those interested in artist personalities and technical information have little written material to chew on. There is text by Harris explaining some of his inspirations and decisions regarding his cover art, but he almost never mentions how his paintings were done. Not mentioned at all is anything biographical (though in Acknowledgements, he states he is married with children).

I would have liked to know about his art training and how his work evolved before he hit the book cover trade big-time. He is known to have evolved to painting in oils (see my post, link above), and picture captions in the book note that some preliminary color studies used pastel. I would have liked an explanation of how he goes about creating a cover painting from start to finish. But I am not really part of the intended readership, so these complaints of mine are really peripheral, and now I'll now consider the book on its own terms.

As noted, most of the images are related to book cover art. But there is one section dealing with an imaginary world that Harris created and has been illustrating for his own pleasure for something like 30 years in his spare time. Apparently he also has written a narrative relating to this, and some snippets or paraphrases are included so that readers might better understand what that set of images is about.

Harris' cover art mostly lacks hard-edges and sheen that one finds in technical illustration. Straight lines can be present, depending on the subject matter, but his works tend to be of the richly-painted colorist kind. This is where the full-page and two-page images are useful: you can see the color layering he makes good use of.

His subjects, the imaginary space ships and such, that he includes remind be a lot of John Berkey's cover illustrations, but with a more impressionistic touch in their execution. Harris also chooses to depart from scientific accuracy in order to achieve an artistic or emotional effect. That is, his outer space is not starkly black, but often blends of colors and cloudy shapes.

The cover art almost always lacks people as main subjects. Instead, they are present in the form of tiny shapes adding scale to the huge buildings, landscapes or space ships that are the main subjects. However, Harris does include human subjects in the personal set of illustrations mentioned above. So he is quite capable of painting people, but either he, his art directors or the SciFi public prefer scenes where humans are barely opera spear-carriers.

In sum, Since Harris' work is imaginative and painted in interesting ways, this work is worth adding to collections of illustration art fans and those of painters in general. The price is reasonable, which makes it even more easy to justify.

Frank Frazetta's "Famous Funnies" Covers

Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) is famous amongst those who pay attention to science fiction and fantasy art, this largely having to do with book and magazine cover illustrations that he painted from the early1960s on.

There was more to Frazetta than those paintings. As his Wikipedia entry indicates, his early career centered around comics work. At first he was involved with comic books, then in 1953 (according to this source) he was hired by Al Capp to work on the Li'l Abner newspaper comic strip, one of the leading ones of its day. Frazetta did Li'l Abner strips from 1954 into 1961, when he resigned. It was at this point that he began his transition to painted illustration.

Comics art is normally based on black-and-white inked drawings. Shading, if required, was done via hatching or crosshatching, though some artists relied on Ben-Day, Zipatone and other quasi-mechanical aids. A colored cartoon usually had minimal shading on the original inked artwork, colors being applied as solid areas by the printer based on the artist's instructions.

In the early 1950s, Frazetta created a number of covers for the Famous Funnies publication that went defunct with issue No. 218, July 1955. Frazetta created covers dealing with Buck Rogers for issues 209-215, not long before publication ceased. Some sources above attest that these cover illustrations helped Frazetta to get hired by Capp. His version of Rogers and girlfriend Wilma Deering are his own interpretation, and not done in the styles of Dick Calkins or Rick Yager, who did most of the work on the strip in its glory days.

Below are Frazetta's covers in sequence.

Gallery

Sad to say, Frazetta's drawings here are not top-notch.  Numbers 210, 211 and 212 feature foreshortening that strikes me as off: heads are too large for Buck in 210 and 212, and for Wilma in 211. Wilma's muscles are too well-defined in 213; she should be more feminine (an error Frazetta seldom made in later years).  Wilma's legs are too large in 215.  The 209 drawing seems okay, as does that for 214 (though the couple are too squeezed together in the spaceship's cockpit, plus being too large to fit in the ship's structure as drawn.

That said, the cover for No. 214 is my favorite, especially with the colors removed as in the image above. Click to enlarge.

Ed Valigursky: Illustrating Real and Imaginary Technology

Illustrator Ed Valigursky (1926-2009) originally focused his efforts on science-fiction and other speculative subjects. Eventually he drifted over to depicting aircraft and other real-life technological objects and became one of the best in that business. Unfortunately, I couldn't find many examples of his aviation art on the Internet, so what's displayed below will have to do for now.

My take on aviation art is that there are several approaches to depicting airplanes. One is the "show all the rivets" hard-edge style. I suppose this appeals to the crowd that loves seeing details. The other extreme is what I'll call the "French watercolor" approach where hardly any details are seen, and the details present are inaccurately drawn. My conjecture is that the audience for this is comprised of people who do not like or understand airplanes. Then there is a middle ground where aircraft are portrayed as they might be seen in real life at a glance, with one area in focus, others de-emphasized. A master in this was R.G. Smith who I mentioned here. Valigursky's aviation art fell in the range between the rivets school and Smith, presenting his subjects clearly and with artistic flair.

Below are examples of his aviation art along with science-fiction and other subjects as context.

Gallery

Stukas
To set the scene, here is one of his aviation paintings.

Amazing Stories cover - December 1956

"Space Viking" cover - 1963

"The Cosmic Computer" cover - 1964
The two lower covers are examples of his better SciFi work. Sometimes he dashed off cover art with sad results, as can be seen in the topmost cover.

Saga magazine cover - September 1953

Nautilus - for Saga, April 1959
Two illustrations featuring submarines.

"Flying in Flanders" cover

"No Parachute" cover

"Full Circle" cover

P-38s and Messerschmitt
More aviation art. The lower two examples are the kind of Valigursky illustrations I like best. But to nit-pick, the P-38s seem to have 1942-43 vintage U.S. markings, yet the serial number on the tail of the near aircraft has a 1944 fiscal year serial number indicating when its construction was budgeted.

Hal Phyfe's Pastel and Camera Portraits

Hal Phyfe (1892-1968), according to this report: "Great Grandson of Duncan Phyfe, the iconic furniture designer of the early republic, Herold Rodney Eaton "Hal" Phyfe was born in Nice, France, to a New York society family. Trained as a sculptor in France and a painter in Italy, Hal Phyfe began pursuing photography an an enlistee in World War I..."

That link contains the most detailed biographical information I could find in a quick Web search. According to it, Phyfe did pastel portraits of Hollywood and Broadway stars after the war, then shifted to photography starting about 1926. Pastels were the fashionable portrait medium for movie fan magazine covers during the 1920s and early 30s, perhaps because smooth blending was possible so that faces of female stars generally looked more flattering than if done in oil paint. Plus, pastel portraits could be made relatively quickly and cheaply.

It seems that Phyfe was something of an eccentric who nevertheless was acceptable socially. And his approach to portrait photography of women was practical: scroll down the link for his hints to sitters.

As best I can judge, his pastel portraits were about par for the fan magazine cover course, lacking the pizazz of masters of that small art such as Rolf Armstrong. And his photos also strike me as being competent, but not in the Cecil Beaton or Edward Steichen league.

So that we have below are decently made period pieces, which make them interesting to me and perhaps you.

Gallery

Bebe Daniels - 1923

Gloria Swanson - 1923

Gilda Gray - 1926

Colleen Moore - 1927

Billie Burke
Phyfe was one of Florenz Ziegfeld's photographers by 1930, but he made this pastel of Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke for what seems to be a Follies promotional piece or program cover.

Photo in perfume ad - c.1926

Clara Bow - 1932

Marian Nixon

Una Merkel

New Book: Automobile Styling

I've been busy of late, and apologize for not replying to comments. For one thing, I've been traveling a lot this winter season, my wife wanting to get away from gloomy Seattle.

Also, I was writing another book.

That's the cover, and it's an e-book that can be found here. It can be downloaded to an iPad, Kindles, and perhaps other devices.

My thesis is that after a period of rapid, focused change in appearance during the 1930s and 40s, what followed has been largely a case of changing styles or fashions that were influenced to some degree by outside forces such as technological changes and government regulations.

Here is an excerpt:

* * * * *Harley Earl’s legendary design taste seems to have failed him in his last few years as GM styling supremo.

The tepid public response to GM’s 1957 senior line resulted in a set of garish, panic-induced 1958 facelifts that a younger Earl likely would not have tolerated. My belief is that Earl’s success from the end of the 1920s to the mid-1950s was based on his ability to formulate a valid concept of styling evolution.

As noted, he strove to have cars seem long and low even if they physically were not. Indeed, automobiles did become longer and lower during his reign. He probably saw that car bodies would become integrated with passing attention given to aerodynamic streamlining and greater emphasis on visual streamlining. This too came to pass. Towards the end of the 1940s he must have considered jet planes and rocket ships as perhaps the next evolutionary direction, and for a time this seemed to work as well. And his judgment regarding styling trends might have remained acute enough that, by the mid-1950s, he perhaps realized that airplane and spaceship themes were not going to work well because they were impractical in terms of street and highway based everyday use. If this was his thought, he was correct yet again.

Earl’s real problem by 1956 or thereabouts was that he could not think of any valid new evolutionary styling path. And he could not do so because no such path existed. So he floundered, not being able to deal with a directionless styling environment.
* * * * *
Unlike my other e-book "Art Adrift," this book is richly illustrated because I was able to make use of advertising and other publicity material issued by the automobile companies.

I hope the car buff readers will enjoy it.

What I'm Up To

In 2012 I finally finished "Art Adrift" and had it published as an e-book on Amazon. The publishing process, once I learned it, was simple enough that I decided to write more books.

As 2012 draws to a close, I'm working on a book about American automobile styling. I posit two periods when the appearance of cars was evolutionary. Otherwise, aside from occasional exogenous nudges due to technological advances and government regulations, automobile styling has been far more a matter of fashion than design in the pure, ideal sense. The book will be richly illustrated to show the reader how my thesis applies.

While that is going on, I'm mulling about a book dealing with the early 20th century ideology/religion of Functionalism as applied to the fields of industrial design and architecture. No real thesis yet, but I'm collecting material on the subject.

And it also seems that I'm done yet done with Art Adrift. I recently read a couple of chapters and spotted enough typos needing correction to persuade me to do a clean-up to have in place for new purchasers before the end of the year. It's available now.

Early Fortune Magazine Cover Art

The business magazine Fortune was launched by Henry Luce's Time, Inc. in February 1930, only a few months after the October 1929 stock market crash that set off the Great Depression. While the timing seems poor in light of history, the concept surely made some sense during the period when the magazine was being planned.

Surprisingly, the magazine wasn't scrubbed as the Depression was dragging on far longer than originally thought. I don't know if or when it became profitable, but Luce stuck with it until prosperity finally returned. As I write this, it is still being published.

Fortune in its first decade or so was a classy publication. It was printed on thick, quality stock and illustrated by some of America's best illustrators and photographers. It was priced at $1 per copy or $10 for a yearly subscription. According to an inflation calculator I just accessed, those values translate into about $14 and $140 in 2012 dollars. On the high side, but not impossibly so.

Below are some covers from 1930 into 1940.

Gallery

February, 1930
The first issue. Pictured seems to be a wheel of fortune adorned with Zodiac symbols.

August, 1933
The cover illustration was made by Ernest Hamlin Baker who did many portraits for Time magazine covers.

May, 1934

May, 1936
Illustration by John Cook.

February, 1938
Illustration by Alan Atkins.

September, 1940
By the start of the 1940s, Fortune was using photography for cover art. The aircraft pictured is a Douglas B-18 of the Army Air Corps' 9th Bomber Squadron based at March Field in southern California. By the time this Fortune cover was printed, the squadron was converting to B-17s.

New Illustration Readings

Here are two items of interest to readers who like pre-1970s illustration.

First is issue No. 39 of Illustration magazine. I'm citing it because its cover and lead article deal with Pete Hawley, famous for the illustrations he made for Jantzen back in the 1950s. I really need to write a post about him. Another article in that issue you might enjoy concerns the somewhat enigmatic Heinrich Kley who also deserves a post.

The next item worth your while is the new book about Albert Dorne with text by primo illustration maven David Apatoff who mentions it in this post on his Illustration Art blog. The huge news in this post is that he is working on a book about the great Bernie Fuchs. If there's anyone more qualified to do a biography about Fuchs, I'll be stunned to know who it might be. I can hardly wait for the Fuchs book.

As for the book about Dorne, I'm not so sure. It isn't Apatoff's problem, but instead mine. That's because, while I respect Dorne for his work and career, I could never get excited about his illustrations, competently done though they were. So I'll mull over buying the book for a while. Oh: I ought to do a Dorne post too.

The Book is Completed

After more time than I care to admit to myself, I finally wrapped up my art history book and sent it off to Amazon as an e-book that can be downloaded onto one of their Kindles, an iPad, or certain other devices.

Back when I was blogging at 2Blowhards, I thought I would write about artists active 1850-1945 who were ignored by mainstream art historians. I would feature how and what they painted, of course, but I also wanted to treat how they dealt with the increasing influence of modernism. As it turned out, that concept wasn't really tractable due to the difficulty of finding the information I needed given the amount of time and effort I was willing to expend on the project. And given the advent of the Great Recession, the idea seemed like a long shot for acceptance by a publisher in any case.

I finally came around to accepting the notion of doing an e-book, even though that would mean sacrificing the richly-illustrated content that I originally had in mind. About that time I also realized that it wasn't just traditional painters who were having problems with modernism. Even famous avant-gardists had reached a point where they didn't quite know what to do next. This crisis happened around the end of the Great War.

At that point, everything clarified in my mind, and the actual writing of the book suddenly became a simple matter of grinding out the words, all 56,000 of them. Here is the blurb material I submitted to Amazon:

* * * * *
Art Adrift deals with a crisis of modern painting largely ignored in art history books. What happened was that modernist painters essentially stopped making major innovations by 1920 because nearly every alternative to the rejected traditional styles of painting had been tried. Yet it was believed by modernists that to become famous, an artist had to be creative in the manner of Picasso and other painters behind the art movements that bubbled up in the early 1900s. The problem of having to innovate when innovation was barely possible led to a period of comparative creative stagnation of the avant-garde between the world wars.

The 1920-1940 period also was one in which artists who were not originally modernist had to ponder how much modernism, if any, they needed to incorporate in their work in order to continue their careers. This added to the sense of drift and uncertainty in painting.

And then there were skilled magazine and advertising illustrators, aware of modernism, who had to deal with editors and art directors concerned that images be acceptable to the general public.

All this is brought to life via verbal sketches of dozens of painters and characteristics of their paintings.

This book begins by describing how modernism arose during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in fields such as architecture and industrial design as well as in painting. A chapter is devoted to the modernist narrative of art history 1850-1920 from the perspective of 1960, when modernism and abstract painting were thought to be the end-state of artistic evolution. A complementary chapter describes what non-modernist painters were doing at that time, painters ignored in the other narrative. Chapters deal with the matter of creativity and characteristics of modernist paintings, setting the stage for most of the remainder of the book which deals with what happened between 1920 and 1940 in the world of painting. The final chapter treats the continuing lack of direction in painting from 1960 to the present following a brief period of domination by abstract art (something already tried as early as 1912).

* * * * *
In the final chapter I also hypothesize why artists moved into fields other than painting.

Due to lack of a large budget for permissions and the dangerous waters of copyright law, illustrations are restricted to chapter headings until such time as I can find a hardcopy publisher (if ever). So a fair part of the book is comprised of short introductions to painters along with brief discussions about what modernist stylistic elements they used or rejected. This is to build my case regarding innovation following the Great War. In the Preface, I suggest that readers resort to the Internet to view paintings of interest that are mentioned in the text. Not an ideal situation, but my main goal was to get some ideas out without waiting years for the ideal publication to appear.

If my subject intrigues you, take a look here and perhaps download the book. The price is $9.95 or its equivalent in other currencies Amazon deals in.

Crowing Proclaimed, no Crow Eaten

The tiny image above is the largest I could find showing the American Artist magazine cover for its June 2012 issue.

The image is of a study or uncompleted painting in the Joaquin Sorolla museum in Madrid. I stumbled across it while visiting in October 2010, photographed it, and included photos such as the one below in this post.

I took the photo because it was the only example I knew of showing his way of blocking in his subject material.

That post was linked by Charley Parker's Lines and Colors blog, leading to a significant rise in readership here.

So far as I'm aware [pats self on back], my image was the first of Sorolla's painting to appear on the Internet.

Illustration Features Coby

The illustration above (click to enlarge) is by Coby Whitmore (1913-88) whose career flourished in the years before television began killing off the big general-interest magazines.

Whitmore could be classed as one of the "big head" school of illustration, where backgrounds disappeared and the focus was on a gorgeous women who sometimes had a handsome man in the scene as a supporting cast member. And there might be a few stage setting details such as an end table, doorway or chair sketched in. That "big head" phrase was derision from a slightly earlier generation of illustrators who included detailed backgrounds in their work, the implication being that the new breed was lazy.

Me? I think Whitmore's work is terrific.

And if you are a Whitmore fan or are curious about my enthusiasm, grab a copy of issue number 37 of Illustration Magazine. It contains a long, well-illustrated article on Whitmore that features many quotations from the artist. Such quotes are rare in Illustration because in many cases their subjects died many years earlier and left little trace other than fading pictures in crumbling magazines.

Be warned that Illustration can be hard to find on news stands (try Barnes & Noble bookstores first) and the publisher often sells off his on-line order supply fairly fast. I got to the point where I subscribed to the magazine to ensure that I could get a copy.

Lewis Mumford, Art Critic

To my mind, Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) was a good example of a "public intellectual" -- an admittedly slippery term -- of the 1925-1965 variety. You can do a Google search on the label, but for my present purposes I'll define the concept as a person not always equipped with college degrees and not employed by a college or university who thinks about matters important to society and writes influential articles regarding his take on such matters.

Mumford's Wikipedia entry is here and that of the Dictionary of Art Historians here. Although his interests were wide-ranging, he is probably best known for his commentaries on architecture and urban planning. He wrote books on those subjects that were considered important in his day and he served as architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine for three decades.

What I hadn't known until recently was that for six years (1932-37) he also wrote an occasional New Yorker column dealing with what he found in art museums and galleries. These pieces have been gathered into this book. Reading those old columns was like being transported to another world -- a world whose residues I encountered growing up and whose art I'm currently trying to make sense of with respect to a self-imposed writing project.

Besides spouting off opinions as a critic must, Mumford was obliged to write in a casual, digressive mode that New Yorker editor Harold Ross felt epitomized New York City's sophistication in those days. And New York City was indeed the center of intellectual and creative ferment in the United States. So Mumford tried to visit as many important museum exhibits and gallery shows as he could, mentioning what he liked and disliked as well as sometimes commenting on what (and who) he felt was missing.

What did Mumford like? Just about anything associated with John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. He was also favorably disposed to the idea of an American Art, something in the air for many years that became a big 1930s topic. For instance, he liked several of the Ashcan School artists of the early 1900s. But he didn't care for art that contained a whiff of patriotism and therefore wasn't entirely fond of American Regionalism in the form of Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, etc. He liked the paintings of communist-sympathizing William Gropper and Joe Jones and favored modernism over conservative, traditional, bourgeois-oriented art even though recognizing that not all of it measured up.

He had a reasonably good knowledge of 19th century art and thought Albert Pinkham Ryder was really good, Winslow Homer pretty good and Jules Bastien-Lepage and his ilk hardly worthy of mentioning in passing. At least he mentioned Batien-Lepage who at the time was well on his way to becoming a non-person so far as art history was concerned.

Mumford was not receptive to Surrealism at first, but wrote a column basically supportive of it not long before dropping his art criticism job. As for other Europeans, he liked Renoir (aside from his middle, non-impressionist period), Maurice Utrillo (whose reputation was high in those days) and Picasso's early modernist work (though not so much his post Great War exploration of heavy, classically-derived forms).

My general take on Mumford's art criticism is that he was a little too smugly a proponent of the "advanced" artistic theories and fashions of his day -- more a cheerleader than someone with a deeper, more strongly based critical sense. But if he had taken the latter tack (assuming he was capable), I wonder if he ever would have gotten his New Yorker gig.

Howard Gerrard, Military Illustrator

Some illustrators are generalists when it comes to their subject-matter. Others find themselves specializing, either through choice or by force of circumstances. One field that supports some specialists is military-related subjects. Back on 10 August 2009 on the 2Blowhards blog I posted this article on British illustrator Terence Cuneo who focused on railroads and warfare using a painterly style. And on the 3rd of that month I wrote about Frank Wootton who specialized in automobiles and aircraft.

A currently active British illustrator who deals with warfare and related subjects is Howard Gerrard whose style is also painterly, though its appearance differs from the others because they generally painted in oils and Gerrard often seems to work in gouache or a similar medium which produces a flatter effect.

A short session on Google turned up but a tiny amount of information about Gerrard. He has a Web site, but it's "under construction" and we'll just have to wait until the scaffolding has been removed and the Queen cuts the ribbon to inaugurate services.

The Gerrard information that I found is here on the site of Osprey, a publisher that focuses on short, focused, illustrated books about military subjects. Gerrard has illustrated a number of their volumes and is given credit on the covers and title pages.

In my opinion, Gerrard is the best of Osprey's team of illustrators, producing informative and visually satisfying images that both complement and supplement the text, diagrams and photographs found in a typical Osprey publication. The Osprey illustrations are based on the requirement that various parts of the images be indexed and explained on a following page. This meant that Garrard probably had to keep more elements in sharp focus than he might have were he able to focus on aesthetic considerations.

Here are some examples of Gerrard's work.

Gallery

Assault on Red October steel plant, Stalingrad

El Alamein battle scene

Sherman tank attacking German artillery

The three images above appear to be from Osprey books dealing with specific operations or campaigns in World War 2. As noted above, much of each illustration is in sharp focus though Gerrard was able to get painterly in a few places.

Clipped-wing Spitfires
This does not appear to be from an Osprey book and seems to be painted in oils or acrylics. It reminds me of Frank Wootton's paintings, but with a higher degree of accuracy -- Wootton tended to freehand his subjects rather than construct them using formal, architectural perspective methods.

Doolittle raider approaching Yokohama - 1

Doolittle raider approaching Yokohama - 2

These two images are details from an illustration in this Osprey book dealing with the famous 18 April 1942 raid led by Jimmy Doolittle against Tokyo and other Japanese cities. As you might recall, B-25 Army medium bombers were launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet in a daring effort that had a great deal of psychological impact for both Americans and Japanese. Historians have argued that the raid spurred the Japanese to attack the island of Midway, a turning-point battle that resulted in the loss of four of their aircraft carriers and many of their best pilots.

These images are scans from the book and don't show the subtleties you would notice when viewing the printed page. There is a good deal of painterly gouache here because the focus is on the B-25 and very little on other elements. I encourage you to examine a copy or even purchase one.

Update: Reader Richard Sullivan commented to inform me that the Stalingrad image is actually by Peter Dennis.

Howard Pyle Exhibit Catalog Gripes

The Delaware Art Museum has an exhibit (November 12, 2011 – March 4, 2012) dealing with famed illustrator Howard Pyle (1853-1911). It opened three days after the 100th anniversary of Pyle's death.

The cover of the exhibit's catalog is shown above. If you can't visit the museum store, you can order the catalog here.

I have issues with the catalog. That's because it drifts a small way into the cesspool of academic political correctness which, in my possibly warped judgment, is unfair to both the subject and readers interested enough in the subject to fork over the $45 cost of the book.

First, the positive elements. I thought the chapter by illustrator James Gurney was especially informative, probably because he is knowledgeable about the history of illustration and understands the trade's practical aspects. As for the authors of the other chapters, I didn't at first know who they are because nowhere in the book is there any background information. Gurney is not identified either; I'm aware of him because I follow his blog (linked above).

Although there is some subject matter overlap, most of the chapters are informative, even the one dealing with Pyle and the Swedenborgian Faith that was related to some of his works.

One place that ruffled my feathers was a chapter titled "The Gender of Illustration: Howard Pyle, Masculinity, and the Fate of American Art" by Eric J. Segal. Some Googling suggests that this Segal is on the faculty of the University of Florida and has written about masculinity with respect to Norman Rockwell and the matter of race as related to the Saturday Evening Post magazine. "Gender" and race are two politically motivated academic obsessions of the last few decades, so I suppose Segal is doing a nice job of building his career dealing with those and related subjects. I regard this business of applying currently fashionable views as a yardstick for evaluating a past that was essentially unaware of them as both intellectually silly and potentially dangerous to the reputations of worthy historical figures. This chapter should never have been included in the catalog.

I also had a problem with part of the chapter "The Persistence of Pirates: Pyle, Piracy, and the Silver Screen" by David M. Lubin. Lubin's chapter isn't all that bad except where he takes several detours attempting to link piracy to late 19th century capitalists, a gratuitous gesture unnecessary to the chapter's subject. Lubin is on the faculty of Wake Forest University.

As for my overall reaction to the catalog, I would have preferred more larger reproductions of Pyle's art and a lot less "scholarly" analysis.

John Berkey Featured in Illustration

It's pile-on time. Illustration magazine just came out with its 36th issue which features ace illustrator John Berkey (1932-2008) and illustration-oriented blogs are already posting about the great event. So why not join in? After all, I too am a Berkey fan and wrote about him here just about a year ago.

The author of the illustration piece is Jim Pinkowsi who maintains a blog that has images of much of Berkey's work; the link is here. A Website by the Berkey estate is here.

Pinkowski's article has details on Berkey's use of casein paints, a medium I was never fond of. It seems that Berkey didn't use the paints out of tubes (though he might have early in his career), instead he mixed his own batches using raw pigments. Later he seems to have added acrylic binder to some of his mixes.

Let me propose two classes of classical illustrator (ignoring those using digital media for most of a given piece): There are those who paint using easels (Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker, Dan dos Santos, Greg Manchess) and there are others who work on a drawing board. Drawing board based artists tend to be commercial artists who use gouache, airbrush and other water-based media on materials such as illustration board, though a small (less than 0.5 meter, say) illustration can be done on a drawing board using almost any kind of medium and support.

Berkey was a drawing-board guy. And he was shrewd enough to realize that working close to the image could degrade the result; it had to be viewed from farther away because the final version usually would be reproduced at a smaller size than the original -- in effect increasing the viewing distance. Berkey's eventual cure for this problem was a mirror setup. His drawing board was reflected using a mirror placed above it to another mirror placed at a distance. This double-reversal allowed him to view the work-in-progress at a distance of about eight feet (2.5 meters) without having to budge from his chair.

Here is how the setup looked from the perspective of the drawing board. This image was scanned from the book whose cover is shown below.

Pinkowski's blog includes other images of this setup.

The Illustration article is of interest because it contains more than just a bunch of Berkey's space ship images, great though they are. A nice selection of other subjects can be found, demonstrating Berkey's overall ability and versatility.

If you don't see the new issue of Illustration in your local Barnes & Noble's magazine rack, go the the Illustration site linked above and order before it is sold out.