Fortunino Matania and His Coup d'œil

Fortunino Matania (1881-1963) was an illustrator whose technical prowess has recently gained some attention in the illustration corner of the Internet. His Wikipedia entry is here, and he is mentioned here in a Dan Dos Santos post on the Muddy Colors blog and here on James Gurney's blog.

I strongly recommend that you read both the Dos Santos and Gurney posts which deal with Matania's extremely strong visual memory and his ability to compose an illustration on the fly, without preliminary studies. The Wikipedia biography offers background information about his career journey from Italy to France (briefly) and on to England, where he spent the rest of his life.

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Illustration for "A Princess of Mars"

Blackpool

Southport poster
First, some examples of his commercial work.

"The Capture of the Sugar Refinery at Courcelette by the Canadians on September 15, 1916"

Munitions factory scene

The Last Message
Matania seems to be best known as a war artist. He liked to paint pretty women, so the munitions factory scene is populated with them.

London Omnibus
This was probably painted only a few years after he moved to London in 1904. The omnibus route signs suggest that it went from the West End to northern boroughs, but here it is probably pictured near Piccadilly, to judge by the women's clothing.

Southport Wintertime, poster
I don't have a date for this poster, but one web site featuring it says circa 1933. There's a green car in the background with an early fastback body, so that inclines me to peg it more like 1935, but probably not much later. Note the Art Deco design on the front of the building. I seriously need to get my time machine fixed so that I can join that crowd.

In the Beginning: Andy Warhol

I consider Andy Warhol (1928-1987) as something of a joke so far as being a Fine Arts practitioner is concerned. Like Picasso, his main talents were in sniffing out incipient changes in cultural trends and in self-promotion. As artists, I regard them as being average-professional in their abilities. (In part that's because I don't rank "creativity" as the most important consideration when evaluating art.)

As for Warhol, back in the days before he made reproductions of photos of Marilyn, Liz and Elvis that now auction for millions of dollars, he actually drew. And he seems to have been fairly good at it.

But those drawings were not Fine Art pieces. They were commercial art, what he studied in college (I did too). His work was good enough for him to survive in the highly competitive New York market -- no small achievement. Better yet for him, his sensitivity to the marketplace might have been a factor in taking up Fine Art just as the market for illustration was about to begin its 1960s decline.

Here is some of Warhol's commercial work.

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Schiaparelli ad

Record album cover - 1958
This is in the stylistic spirit of late-1950s illustrators such as David Stone Martin, who I wrote about here and here.

I. Miller ad - 1958

Fashion accessories drawing - 1959

Ad art - 1960

François Flameng: Seriously Versatile

François Flameng (1856-1923) is probably best remembered -- if he's remembered at all outside France -- as a portrait artist. Maybe that is the problem. You see, Flameng was an almost exact contemporary of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), the foremost portraitist of his era, not to mention others in the portrait game at around the same time such as Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), John Lavery (1856-1941) and even Phillip de Laszlo (1869-1937). So Flameng's space in the mental real estate of art historians is necessarily modest, given his competition.

I find this unfortunate, because it seems that he was both good and versatile, as we shall see from the images below. Biographical information of a limited sort can be found in English here, and in French here.

Gallery

Zinaida Yusupova - 1894

Portrait de Mme Meunier

Queen Alexandra - 1908
These three formal, commissioned portraits indicate what Flameng painted and suggest why he was hired to do so. One curiosity: Every subject is posed directly facing the artist and viewer. Makes one wonder how their noses were shaped.

Portrait of a Young Woman
This was either a modest commission or a painting made on the initiative of the artist. Yet another full-face view, this showing narrow-set eyes. Nevertheless, a pretty portrait of a believable lady.

Ile Pointeaux
Interesting sort of landscape here. It has something of the character of an illustration. That might be because Flameng actually was an illustrator as well as a fine-arts painter.

Soldats anglais dans les vieux remparts de Péronne

Spads [model XI] Patrolling - 1918

La citadelle de Verdun: les casemates
Speaking of illustration, above are some of many works by Flameng when he carried out his duties as a war artist during the Great War when he was about 60 years old.

Portrait of Max Decugis (son-in-law of the artist)
Probably a late work. No face-on view here, and plenty of the subject's character showing. Too bad more portraits aren't done in this sort of way.

Riviera Promenade
Another apparently late painting. Wish I was there (then or now!).

Raleigh's Out-of-Plumb Ladies

Henry Patrick Raleigh (1880-1944) was a successful, prolific illustrator in his heyday of the 1920s and early 30s, but committed suicide after illustration fashions changed and he failed to follow them. The image above is typical of the elegant lifestyle he portrayed in 1924. The latest issue (No. 43) of Illustration magazine features Raleigh in an article written by his grandson who is planning to sell his extensive collection of Raleigh's works (see announcement at his website). Other interesting information regarding Raleigh can be found here, here and here.

Even though Raleigh would leave his drawing board for months at a time to travel the world, he could create illustrations in a matter of a few hours in many cases: he claimed to have produced thousands. He also did not make extensive use of models, basing his work on his knowledge of human anatomy along with a good memory for visual details.

So it isn't surprising that he sometimes slipped up. I noticed a couple of cases in the Illustration article where women were shown at angles that in real life would have them toppling to the floor. (When standing erect, the center of a person's head should not be outside the zone covered by his feet.) I really like Raleigh's work, but it's still somehow comforting to know that it wasn't always perfect.

The most obvious instance is the lady at the right.

A borderline case here, but I vote that the gal in riding togs ought to be falling backwards. And the helmeted man in the center might fall to his left.

The girl in front of the large man is also in an unstable pose, since she doesn't seem to be leaning against him.  (One can argue, but I judge that she is standing slightly in front of him: note the position of her left arm relative to his chest and the way his body is turned.)

Nice Poster, Obscure Illustrator

I could find next to nothing about Donald Masefield Easton (1896-1956) on the first few pages of a Google search, and almost no examples of his work.

The only reason I made the search and decided to write this post was because I finally discovered who illustrated one of my favorite vintage Hawaii tourist posters, the one you see above (slightly cropped from a photo I took). One of these posters was displayed in Honolulu's Royal Hawaiian Hotel along with a small plaque noting the artist's name. I had seen the poster elsewhere over the years, but without any indication of who did it.

As for the poster itself, I like it because of its early 1930s view of Waikiki when the only major buildings were the Royal Hawaiian (left) and Moana (right) hotels, and because it features a whiff of those toned-down color schemes popular during the 1920s. Clearly a case of false-nostalgia on my part.

Indian Smoke Signals - 1931

Night on the Range - 1932

Union Oil Company advertisement - 1950

The examples shown here really aren't sufficient for a serious evaluation of Easton. Because they deal with the west (Union Oil was a West Coast firm), I'll assume for now that he was based in California, was able to make a living as a competent illustrator, but never made it to the New York - Chicago "big time" for illustrators of his generation.

Walt Louderback: Painterly Illustrator

Walt Louderback (1887-1941) "mailed it in" during much of the 1920s and 1930s when he was living in France and his publisher customers were in the United States. Very little in the way of biographical information regarding Louderback seems to be on the Internet other than here along with this snippet on the Kelly Collection site.

I find this unfortunate, because Louderback was successful in his day and painted in a thick, direct style that I am fond of: Many of his illustrations from the 1920s and early 30s remind me of those by Dean Cornwell, Saul Tepper and Mead Schaeffer.

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A magazine illustration of a casino scene, probably from the 1930s.

More of a poster style such as Cornwell began to take up towards 1930.

Shades of John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo!

This reminds me of Schaeffer's Count of Monte Cristo illustration style.

I wish I had more information on this one, because I can't reconcile the long hair and the otherwise circa-1930 painting style.

From the Kelly Collection, a book cover illustration.

The Homecoming.

This last image shows a modernist style Louderback tried near the end of his career.

C.C. Beall, Watercolor Illustrator

C.C. (Cecil Calvert) Beall (1892-1967) was an illustrator who has become so little-known these days that a quick Web search came up nearly dry where biographical information is concerned. I did find this small site devoted to him. As this is written, it was "under construction," but contains a short sketch about him.

Beall was technically skilled. He almost had to be, considering that he was usually working in what I consider the most difficult medium of all: watercolor. And he did better than many illustrators, being featured in advertising campaigns for Maxwell House Coffee (a leading brand for many years), doing cover art for Collier's magazine (a leading general-interest publication) and illustrating government posters supporting the World War 2 effort. Nevertheless, so far as his career can be evaluated, fairly or not, he probably should be rated as a second-rank illustrator.

Below are examples of his work, some of which I consider really nice.

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Maxwell House Coffee billboard or poster design - 1922

Maxwell House Coffee ad - 1923

Collier's Cover - 30 January 1932
I really like this illustration.  Interesting composition and content -- very 1931-32.  But Beall's treatment of the gal with the top hat is smashing.  Well, the hat is way too large for her head -- but look at that face!

Collier's cover - 11 March 1933
A poor quality image, but it is significant.  For one thing, Beall uses the old trick of creating an overarching image made up of smaller ones.  Another example is directly below.  The main subject here is Franklin Roosevelt, whose first inauguration took place around the time this Collier's issue was on the news stands.  The featured author is George Creel.  He was Woodrow Wilson's propaganda / public relations supremo during the Great War.  His son, also a George Creel, was in charge of Public Information for 8th U.S. Army when I was stationed in Korea.  Though I did PIO work for another command, I met him a time or two.

Defense-related poster - 1941, pre-Pearl Harbor

Army Air Forces poster - 1944

Sketch portrait of John F. Kennedy - 1962

Clayton Knight: Illustrator, Clandestine RCAF Recruiter

Illustrators tend to be a solitary lot unless they happen to share studio space with others. Given that, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that they are mild-mannered sorts who avoid flash, dash and action.

Not all are of that stripe. For example, McClelland Barclay was killed when his ship was destroyed in the South Pacific during World War 2. Dick Calkins, the first Buck Rogers comic strip artist, was an Army Air Corps lieutenant. And some artists for 1930s aviation comic strips were pilots.

One pilot-illustrator was Clayton Knight (1891-1969) who was shot down on the German side of the front lines during the Great War. Before the American entry to World War 2 he, along with Canadian ace Billy Bishop, was involved in recruiting American pilots to fly for the RCAF and RAF.

Biographical information regarding Knight is sparse on the Internet -- here is a brief account. For a detailed report on the World War 2 Clayton Knight Committee, link here or, better yet, here.

Today, if Knight is known for anything, it is that he was the father of Hilary Knight, who illustrated Kay Thompson's "Eloise" books.

Here are some examples of Knight's work.

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American Boy magazine cover - April 1931
Knight's illustrations were mostly aviation-centered.

"Ace Drummond" comic strip
Rickenbacker got the credit for the strip, but Knight did the drawing.

Comic strip (French version)
Here we see knight's signature.

Saturday Evening Post cover - 4 September 1937
Knight sometimes was able to hit the big-time. He might have gained this Post assignment because he was typed as an aviation specialist.

Douglas DC-2 airliners - 1935
These planes are not skillfully depicted.

Sketch of Army Air Corps P-12
The Townend Ring around the motor is slightly too large.

Another P-12 sketch

Based on the illustrations above, I have to conclude that Knight's work was at the journeyman level, far from top-notch even where aircraft were concerned.