Walter Everett, Destructive Master

An illustrator whose work should be much better known is Walter H. Everett (1880-1946). Unfortunately, almost none of his original artwork remains. That's because he burned it.

Illustration über-maven David Apatoff presents much of what is known about Everett here (executive summary: he was odd) and Bud Plant has a short take here. That's pretty much it via the Internet if the first couple of Google search pages are any indication. The illustration-related books in my library add little of importance.

Evidence that exists indicates that Everett was capable of creating illustrations of quality that is art museum material. Especially two pieces: The header illustration to this post and the lead illustration in the Gallery section below. I included a few other works that aren't at that level but, as noted, there is little available.

Gallery

The Loneliness of Peter Parrot - 1924
Illustration that appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine.

I don't have a citation for this illustration.

Samuel Offered on the Steps of the Temple - 1909

Liberty Bonds poster

The two lead illustrations demonstrate that Everett had a mastery of light and color along with skill at placing his brush. To some degree this should be expected, given that he received training from Howard Pyle himself.

Apatoff notes that Everett was a perfectionist. Too bad he wasn't also a packrat.

Peak Art

When I was a commercial art student there was a very small group of emerging artists whose work astonished me. Those guys were so good I came to realize that I could never compete with their likes. So I dropped art after graduation and moved on to more technical fields including demographic forecasting and computer system programming.

One of those master illustrators was the great Bernie Fuchs. Another was Bob Peak (1927-1992). A web site about him run by his son is here and a short Wikipedia entry is here.

Peak seems to be best known for his movie posters such as these:

Notice anything?

What I note is versatility. Peak could work in a variety of styles and media and do fine work regardless. Below are more examples that I hope will give you something of the sense of professional awe I experienced in my student days and thereafter when I encountered his work.

Gallery

Two advertisement illustrations for Trans-World Airlines. These are in the Bernie Fuchs mode.

Poster art for My Fair Lady.

Portrait of Jimmy Carter used for a Time magazine cover.

Watercolor portrait of Louis Armstrong.

Portrait of painter and art instructor Robert Henri -- again rather Fuchs-like.

Advertising art: elegant, Deco-poster like.

As I said, versatile

Barnes & Noble's Mural Guy

Walk into a typical Barnes & Noble bookstore in the USA, seek out the Starbucks coffee shop area and you're likely to see a printed mural filled with images of authors -- images that lurk in a gray area between caricature and portraiture. I find them interesting and will gaze at them from time to time while sipping my coffee and scribbling blog post subject ideas on a paper napkin.

I've been curious who created the murals, but my habitual sloth held me back until now. Some Googling revealed the artist to be Gary Kelley, an apparent hardcore Iowan who got his art degree from the University of Northern Iowa (located in Cedar Falls, which is right by Waterloo) in 1968 and lives in Cedar Falls. This might sound provincial, yet Kelley has carved out a successful career as an illustrator without having to spend his life in the likes of Chicago or New York.

Kelley's web site is here and a biographic sketch from a local art gallery is
here.

Below are examples of his work. His range is broader than shown, so check out his web site for more.

Gallery

Here's a sketch of fellow Iowan Grant Wood, best known for "American Gothic," the über-iconic image of rural Americans.

Nothing to do with Iowa, this is an illustration (or possibly a painting -- I'm not sure which) of Mata Hari, executed for espionage during the Great War.

These three images are 1920s Europe. Kelley seems to have an affinity for the 20s and 30s, an affinity I share which led me to include so many of these works. By the way, the distorted car in the lower image seems to be an Hispano-Suiza, if the radiator-cap mascot is any clue.


I suppose some folks might carp because Kelley tends to favor the bon-ton over the proletariat. But it doesn't bother me, as I'll explain in a forthcoming post.

Norman Rockwell, Colorist

There's a Norman Rockwell exhibit rattling around the country called American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell. It's currently playing in Tacoma, Washington, so of course I had to see it -- the goal being to reinforce impressions gleaned from seeing his works at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Not surprisingly, that museum is the organizer of the exhibit, because its collection of Rockwell's paintings and artifacts is comprehensive.

Years ago when I lived in Albany, New York, I drove across the hills to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a charming town that was Rockwell's last residence. He was living there then, just around the corner from the Red Lion Inn; you could easily spot his detached studio near the house. There was a Norman Rockwell Museum even then. It was housed in ... a house (if my memory is correct: a house or another structure in or near the Red Lion). I went through it once, but at the time was out of touch with art and still in thrall of the modernism that Everyone told us was what was true in Fine Arts. Rockwell was considered a curiosity.

Setting aside the subject-matter, what one finds is a high level of technical skill. One aspect of this that impresses me is that this skill shows even though Rockwell had to do the actual execution (not including planning, reference photography, etc.) in a matter of days or perhaps a week or three to hit his deadlines. Contrast this with some of the Pre-Raphaelite artists who might labor for months on a single work.

One example that struck me was his treatment of a wooden chest of drawers that served as part of the backdrop to the main subject; the wood grain was very nicely handled and more detailed than other contemporary illustrators might have bothered with.

The title of this post asserts that Rockwell was a "colorist" -- to me, that means someone appreciative of color subtleties and interactions and who is able to include such in a painting. Fine Arts painters are most likely to fall into this category, but illustrators also can make the grade. Examples include Frank Frazetta, N.C. Wyeth and, of course, Norman Rockwell.

Lincoln for the Defense (click to enlarge and improve quality)

The painting shown above was part of the exhibit. If your computer allows enlargement, this can be done in two stages; after the first enlargement, click on it again and you might get an even larger view. Even if you are able to enlarge it, Rockwell's use of colors is still not as apparent as when viewing the painting in person. In the stage-two enlargement you might notice areas of dark red in several places, especially on the sleeve folds of his bent arm. In person, this red is much brighter and, in my judgment, unnecessary. Otherwise, Lincoln's skin and clothing contain many hues and not just the basic color.

Many of the faces Rockwell painted have bits of blue and green along with the expected variations around red-orange. I was often a little startled when a sort of turquoise kept popping up on subjects' skins. These subtleties often didn't make it all the way to printed magazine covers, so Rockwell clearly felt he had to do his artistic duty in full knowledge that his fans wouldn't be able to see all that he'd actually wrought.

Other items in his illustrations also were painted with traces of color complementary to the main hue, creating a rich appearance. For example, a large leather bag slung over a coachman's shoulder contains more dark green than tans and browns.

I could go on, but perhaps the best thing I can do is urge you to view some of Rockwell's originals. The best site is the museum in Stockbridge. If you can't get there, then try for the exhibit I've been discussing (the link lists locations following its Tacoma stand). And there might be examples of his work here and there; check the internet to discover if a Rockwell is nearby.

Irwin Caplan Playing Shakespeare

Irwin Caplan (1919-2007) was a well-known magazine cartoonist during the final glory years of the "slick" general-interest magazines. As his Wikipedia entry indicates, Caplan practiced a good deal more art and design than those cartoons. But it was the cartoons that most people knew about.

In the pre-Internet age it wasn't so easy to locate information about people, so that's why I was surprised regarding all his non-cartooning accomplishments when reading the link above. You see, I encountered him Way Back When.

I was majoring in commercial art at the University of Washington and one of the classes in that field was Fashion Illustration. And our instructor was ... Irwin Caplan, of all people: the famous cartoonist.

A slight problem I had with that was a lack of credibility: What did he know about fashion illustration? Perhaps sensing this, one day he brought in a newspaper clipping of a small advertisement for a blouse where the illustration was a wash drawing by Himself. He told us that even though the illustration was small, it was his and it got published, so he was proud of that.

That helped some, but we were most pleased when he brought in his buddy (and well-known local fashion and general-purpose illustrator) Ted Rand and his lovely wife for a demonstration. Oh, how jaded and snobbish we were in our student days!

David Stone Martin and His Scratchy Style

The 1950s and 60s saw major changes in mainstream illustration style. Conventional wisdom has it that photography began to force illustrators to move from highly representational style. For this and other reasons (advent of television, death of general-interest magazines, etc.), that's what indeed happened. And I'll suggest that part of this movement was to styles that tended to give the artist's medium increasing prominence and depiction of the subject matter less.

An artist who attained early success in this venture was David Stone (Livingstone) Martin (1913-1992) whose work was both avant-garde and a source of inspiration to art school students in the mid to late 50s. His Wikipedia entry is here and Leif Peng has a fine series of three articles about Martin at his Today's Inspiration blog dealing with early years, record jackets and general illustration.

My sense is that Martin isn't really considered an Old Master illustrator these days. Perhaps he's one of those respected borderline figures whose day will return at some point. Let's take a look at some of his stuff.

Gallery

"Jazz at the Phil" cover

Lester Young cover

Muggsy Spanier cover

Drawing of Navy medics - c.1943

Schoolboys

Time cover - 26 August 1967

My take is complicated. That's because I really liked his work when it was new and I was young. Now I'm less sure. I'm still fond of his scratchy style of penwork -- the medium business I mentioned above. Although he made use of black spots as a counterpoise from the lines, they aren't nearly in the compositional use-of-black-league of, say, cartoons by Russell Patterson (go to Google or Bing images to find examples). Another way of looking at it might be to say that Martin's works were literally lightweight, though very nicely drawn. Regardless, he was an illustrator whose work should not be ignored.

Robert Fawcett Biography

Robert Fawcett (1903-1967) was a highly respected illustrator who, perhaps due to his color-blindness, usually worked in black inks and compatible media. His major strengths were draftsmanship and composition supported by skill in doing the research needed to get details right.

Illustration-buff blog readers are probably already aware that a major
biography of Fawcett rolled off the presses not long ago (see cover image above). Although late to the scene owing to the fact that I got my copy only a week or so ago, this post is my brief review. (Fawcett has been getting a nice share of attention recently in addition to the book. For example, there was an exhibit of his work last year; Charley Parker mentions it here and includes some biographical information.)

Most of the biography is actually a substantial collection of Fawcett's work. There is a text supplied by the popular illustration blogger David Apatoff who mentions the book in this post.

Since Apatoff does very good work, I was pleased with what I read, but wanted more, more! I'm usually interested in human and situational factors in art almost as much as the art itself, provided such information is available. The comparatively limited amount of verbiage might have been due to (1) the publisher's desire to maximize the pictorial content within the book's page budget -- a reasonable choice -- or (2) David simply wasn't able to locate much information about Fawcett -- a real possibility given that the man died nearly 45 years ago.

As for Fawcett himself, he claimed to have studied neither anatomy nor perspective. Rather, he said that he learned to observe very carefully, and the ability to draw what he saw was sufficient for operating on the level he did. I wonder. Whereas I'm pretty sure that he couldn't name many bones and muscles, I doubt that he was naive regarding artistically important things going on "under the skin" so to speak. Moreover, I find it hard to believe that he didn't understand perspective up to and including the three-point variety. Perhaps he couldn't work out the details mechanically as an architect might, but he knew how to closely "fake" it.

Skilled as he was, Fawcett sometimes rushed his jobs. Here and there in the book I found featured male figures (usually clad in suits) that appeared stiff and simplified. The illustration below tends in that direction, but isn't as extreme as a few cases in the book.

Magazine illustration - 1958
This is not to criticize Fawcett; many of his illustrations were prodigiously detailed and superbly executed. Still, he was a busy man in the 1940s and 50s and needed to keep bread on his table, so occasionally he seems to have rushed things. It's these odd details of his thinking and work that make the book so interesting.

Rene Bouche: Fashion Illustration and Beyond

Fashion illustration master René Bouché (Robert August Buchstein) was born in Prague 20 September 1905 and died in England 3 July 1963, though his career was in Paris in the mid-late 1930s and the United States thereafter. The most detailed biographical information I could find is here.

Fashion illustration is pretty much an artistic ghetto, given that it's a sub-field of illustration, itself a second-class citizen in the art world. But being a fashion artist has its advantages. Vogue and other publications could bring you a lot of money provided they accepted a lot of your work and would even put it on the cover from time to time. Also, given the well-heeled nature of its readership, a reputation as a famous fashion illustrator might lead to portrait commissions and other paid jobs.

Bouché did exactly that, as can be seen below. He even did abstract painting and rubbed elbows with New York's Abstract Expressionism grandees. I find his abstractions lightweight, but you are welcome to judge for yourself if you click on this link.

As for his portrait work, he tended to follow his fashion illustration style with pleasing results. This link to "100 Years of Illustration" has out-takes from a Life magazine feature showing Bouché painting actress Tammy Grimes; two pictures from that set are below.

What couldn't Bouché do? No one really knows because he chose to limit his subject matter. But, somehow, I wonder how well he would have done as a Pulp cover artist, portraying combat, or drawing football players for Sports Illustrated.

Here is a sampling of Bouché's work.

Gallery

Fashion illustrations

Another fashion illustration, this of Givenchy outfits - 1957

Illustration for a Schweppes advertisement

Edward R. Murrow

Jack Benny
The CBS television network commissioned Bouché to make portraits of some of its leading performers to use in advertising. At the time (the 1950s) CBS was regarded by itself and much of the general public as being the "classy" network, so it used a classy artist for these portrayals. Younger readers: Edward R. Murrow was a famous newsman and commentator, Jack Benny was one of America's top comedians.

Actress Audrey Hepburn

John F. Kennedy - Time Magazine cover, 9 June 1961
Since Bouché did Vogue covers, Time must have figured that he was good enough to do a little work for them.

Painting actress Tammy Grimes - Life Magazine, 19 May 1961
Note that the final result (below) is not the same as the initial version (above).

Self-Portrait
This was probably done in the later part of his life.

Covering the Famous: Ernest Hamlin Baker

Once upon a time there was an important weekly news magazine named Time. It was the leading magazine in its category from the beginning (it being the first of its kind in the U.S.), and for years its cover would feature an illustration-portrait of a newsmaker. Artwork prevailed (though not exclusively) through the 1960s and beyond, though photography slowly began taking over as the 1970s wore on.

A prolific cover artist during the 1940s and 50s was Ernest Hamlin Baker (1889-1975). He attended Colgate, where he was a track and field athlete and was active in student publications. As an artist, he was largely self-taught, but had the ability to work his way into the illustration field. This website has some biographical information and examples of his work.

Baker's mature style was strongly realistic. No modernist simplification for him: Baker seemed to glory in depicting every wrinkle and blemish on the faces assigned to him by Harry Luce and the editors who selected cover subjects.

Baker's art is probably unfashionable in many art-elitist circles. However, I tend to think that his covers represent valuable documentation of his times and Time's heyday.

Below are examples of Baker's work.

Gallery

American Legion poster - ca. 1920

Cover of January, 1934 Fortune magazine

The Activities of the Narragansett Planters - Wakefield, Rhode Island Post Office mural - 1939
This was a New Deal (but not a WPA) project, as this link attests.

Time magazine Man of the Year cover, Jan. 6, 1942
Features President Franklin Roosevelt; his new wartime allies Stalin and Churchill are in the background. Baker seems to have Winston eying Uncle Joe warily, a reflection of his true view of the Communist dictator.

Time magazine cover for Nov. 23, 1942
The subject is James Doolittle, leader of the famous Tokyo raid earlier that year and now commander of Twelfth Air Force in the newly-opened North Africa front. The olive drab color and white-on blue star represent the paint-job found on U.S. Army aircraft at that time.

Time magazine Man of the Year cover, Jan. 1, 1945
He is Dwight Eisenhower, commander of Allied forces that invaded France in June and at year's end were on a front near the German border.

Via this website, a spread from Ernest W. Watson's 1946 book "40 Illustrators and How They Work." Discussed is a mid-1930s portrait illustration of CIO labor leader John L. Lewis, a powerful figure in those days. Try clicking on the image for a much larger view. If your computer screen is large, you might be able to make out the text. To me the key item of interest is that Baker used thinned oil paints rather than watercolor, tempera or some other medium to get the effects seen in works such as the Time covers shown above.

Frank R. Paul: Bad Art That Spawned a Genre

Yes, there existed what might be called science-fiction art before Frank R. Paul (1884-1963) appeared on the pulp magazine scene, but many believe Paul is the guy who counts as the effective inventor of the genre. And that "many" includes illustrator Frank Wu who posted this strong endorsement of Paul that includes a gallery of his magazine covers. So if the examples shown below aren't enough Paul, be sure to explore the link to Wu.

Paul was born in Vienna, trained as an architect, studied in Paris and migrated to the United States before the Great War. He came to the attention of Hugo Gernsback, who published science-hobbyist magazines. Science-related fiction was part of the content, and by the 1920s Gernsback had spun off a new magazine -- Amazing Stories -- that dealt with what we now call science-fiction. Frank Paul did the cover art.

Paul's strength was his imagination. He conjured up space ships, space suits, flying saucers and other items central to visualizing ultra-high-tech futures.

Paul's weakness, in my opinion, was that he was at best a journeyman artist. His magazine cover paintings strike me as being little more than elaborated cartoons. While I'm happy to give him his proper due as a pioneer, I also cannot deny that I almost wince whenever I see almost any example of his work.

Here are a few of Paul's magazine covers. As usual, try clicking on the images for larger, crisper views.

Gallery

Amazing Stories - April, 1926

Amazing Stories - July, 1926

Amazing Stories - November, 1926

Science Wonder Stories - October, 1929

Amazing Stories - August, 1930

Wonder Stories - December, 1935

Science Fiction - no date