Robert O. Reid, Shooting Star Illustrator

For a very brief time -- about three years -- amusing, cartoonish illustrations by Robert O. Reid appeared on Collier's magazine covers and internal story illustrations as well as some advertisements.

Before and after that blaze of professional glory, little of Reid can be readily found on the Internet. There are images aplenty on Google, but those are the sort of items just mentioned. As for reliable biographical information -- there seems to be none. My go-to hardcopy reference, Walt Reed's "The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000" has nothing on Reid. One of The Norman Rockwell Museum's recent emails mentioned a "Robert O'Reid," but illustration credits for some of the Reid images I downloaded have it "O." and not "O'". One Web site suggested that Reid was more interested in theatre than illustration, so he abandoned art. Another had his years as 1921-2009, but this implies that his work was appearing in a major publication when he was about 17 years old; possible, but not likely.

As for Collier's, it was probably the number two general-interest magazine in America in the 1930s, 40s and in the 50s until its 1957 demise. For illustrators, appearing in Collier's was the next-best professional thing short of having work published in the Saturday Evening Post. So Reid came out of nowhere, was published a lot in Collier's, especially 1938-1940, and then disappeared.

Gallery

Collier's cover - 1 October 1938

Collier's cover - 17 December 1938

Collier's cover - 4 March 1939

Collier's cover - 29 July 1939

Collier's cover - 25 March 1940

Collier's cover - 1 June 1940

Collier's story illustration - 6 May 1939

Collier's story illustration - 17 June 1939

Collier's story illustration

Collier's story illustration

General Tire advertisement illustration ca. 1941

Pre-posting update:

Aha! While researching content for another post, I stumbled across this 27 October 1934 Collier's cover by Reid. So he was nibbling at the Big Time at least four years before his 1938-40 surge. And for sure he wasn't born in 1921. Any solid biographical information on him would be greatly appreciated. Please post as a comment.

Vernon Grant: Cartoonist-Illustrator of the 1930s and 40s

Vernon Simeon Plemion Grant (1902-1990), or simply Vernon Grant, as he signed his works, had a long, active career illustrating magazines, books and advertising. Here is his Wikipedia entry and here is a website dedicated to him.

Grant featured a cartoon-like style in his work that was lively and attractive. It was also highly in tune with the times. Yes, there was a Depression and then a war going on during his peak years. But many Americans were happy to seek relief from unpleasant times by viewing escapist movies and gentle cartoon humor, so Grant did well in difficult times.

As for me, I have no problem with his artistic style, given his objectives and assignments. My problem is, ... well, let's take a look.

Gallery

Judge magazine cover - 19 March 1932
Grant had a sense of humor that must have appealed to some magazine editors and readers, but it largely eludes me. For most of the images in this post including this one, I can think of possible situational jokes; however, none is smashingly obvious.

Judge magazine cover - December 1935

Rice Krispies breakfast cereal characters - c. 1939
Snap, Crackle and Pop grew out of Grant's frequent usage of gnomes in his other illustration work, as in the Judge cover above.

Collier's magazine cover - 21 September 1940
The cowgirl is carrying a tennis racket and shoes. I have no definite notion what that signifies here.

Collier's magazine cover - 4 October 1941
Okay, I think I get the humor here. It contrasts traditional, dress-up type dancing with the Jitterbug dancing whose popularity was peaking around the time Grant painted this cover. His twist, of course, is cross-pairing the dancing couples -- perhaps parents and teen-age children.

Collier's magazine cover - 10 January 1942
The illustration was surely completed before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. It shows a sailor returning from duty in a warm climate. Not exactly war-related, but Collier's editors must have decided that the cover wasn't worth pulling at the last minute, production times being what they were.

Collier's magazine cover - 19 December 1942
Another sailor, another somewhat opaque joke. For once, it's the girl who has to wait for the date. But why is the sailor sleeping? It would be better if Grant provided a reason.

Collier's magazine cover - 5 August 1944
Grant often used sailors in his wartime illustrations. Here he deigns to feature a couple of Army corporals. But the humor? Are they writing each other? Someone else? Who besides Grant and his editor knows.

Collier's magazine cover - 9 June 1945
I have no clear idea who the head in the crystal ball might be.

Grant in his Rock Hill, South Carolina studio

Some Liberty Magazine Covers

According to its Wikipedia entry, Liberty magazine in its original form was published 1924-1950, apparently under three ownerships.

Despite what Wikipedia claims, Liberty was seldom (never?) a serious rival to the Saturday Evening Post in the realm of American general-interest magazines. That is indirectly indicated by the fact that Liberty's cover artists, while entirely competent, were seldom in the absolute front rank of their day. Below are some Liberty covers in chronological order.

Gallery

By Ruth Eastman - 7 February 1925

By Walter Beach Humphrey - 14 March 1925
The title of this cover is "Back from Palm Beach" (tee hee, that's a pun, folks).

By Leslie Thrasher - 2 March 1929
Havana was a popular place to visit in winter for affluent Americans.  Cuba Libre is also an alcoholic drink.

By Georgia Warren - 19 November 1932
I didn't find any useful biographical information on Warren, who was active in the 1930s.  This illustration is surprisingly era-free; it almost could have been painted yesterday.  That might have been because 1932 was during a transition from short to longer hair styles for women.  Another factor is that the clothing is hardly shown, so can't be pinned to a fashion era.

By Lumen Winter - 7 September 1935
There was a Lumen Winter who was best known (according to Wikipedia) as a muralist.  His signature was different than that on this cover.  But it's likely that we're dealing with the same Lumen Winter.

By unknown illustrator - 31 October 1936
Snazzy Hallowe'en witch we have here.  I wonder who the illustrator was.

By Walter Baumhofer - 4 April 1936
Here Baumhofer was beginning his transition from "pulp" to "slick" magazines.

By Scott Evans - 21 November 1936
Zippy car, attractive gal.  Unfortunately, I have no information about Scott Evans, a common name.

By Herbert Paus - 15 April 1944
I suppose Paus set this scene in a war-damaged Italian church, because Italy was where American troops were in action a few months before the D-Day invasion of France.

Albert Dorne: Crowd-Scene Illustrator

Albert Dorne (1906-1965) was an important and very busy man during the final flowering of traditional illustration in America. His brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link with many examples of his work is here. David Apatoff, who wrote an illustrated biography of Dorne, blogged about him here and here. Leif Peng's take on the book is here.

In brief, Dorne started life at the bottom, further burdened by ill health. Nevertheless, he was driven to succeed, a task made easier by his ability to draw.

Dorne had the capability to be versatile, and was so at times when that was called for. Still, it seems to me that what he really liked to illustrate were scenes featuring crowds of people or, failing that, a detailed setting. To accomplish this, he made many preliminary studies, the final one being as detailed as the finished illustration but usually lacking color. He was hugely productive in terms of completed assignments, yet found the time and energy to do all this preparatory work. I find it astonishing that he could manage that while being involved with other projects such as the Famous Artists School.

Another characteristic of Dorne's illustration is his tendency to exaggerate body poses and gestures, something in the spirit of Thomas Hart Benton. I will deal with another of his stylistic traits below in the Gallery section.

For a reason I can't define, I'm not generally fond of Dorne's illustrations even though I greatly respect his talent and productivity.

Gallery

Fight scene
Big crowd here.  Note the V composition motif that helps holds the image together.

Bedside scene
Now for some exaggerated poses in the form of craning necks.

Wurlitzer juke box advertisement art
The crowd lurks around the edges here.

Maxwell House Coffee advertisement
Lots of detail plus a crowd of kids in the dining room.

Preliminary drawing, crowd scene

Preliminary drawing
Observe that the gentlemen at the left and right have very short legs.  Ideally, a person's crotch is about one half of a person's height, though of course people deviate from this measure.  For some reason, Dorne's casts of characters have legs that almost always range from normal (as just defined) to shorter than that.  Sometimes, a lot shorter, as seen here.

Paperback book cover art
The shorter corporals (why so many corporals? was that in the book?) have short legs, which is how things tend to be in reality.

Detail from Saturday Evening Post story illustration
Perhaps for reasons of composition, Dorne drew a number of people here with noticeably short legs.  Examples include the woman in the red skirt, the policeman, and the soldier towards the left side of the image.

"Brownie" Mostly Worked in Black & White

I exaggerated when writing the title of this post, but not very much. Arthur William Brown (1881-1966) spent much of his career not making color oil paintings for magazine covers, but instead did interior illustrations that were usually printed in black and white in those days when color printing was expensive.

Currently, there is little biographical information about Brown on the Internet, though you might consider linking here and here. There's more about him in books dealing with illustrators such as Fred Taraba's fairly recent Masters of American Illustration.

It seems that Brownie (as he was known by his illustrator and other friends) was an early adopter of reference photographs. This was influenced by his slow, careful approach to creating what look to be quickly-done illustrations. (They appear quickly-done because he mostly worked in crayon, pencil and washes that seem less substantial than illustrations done using oil paints.)

What interests me is that he was good at capturing facial expressions and character. How much of this was the product of the photos he took and how much was conscious deviations from the photographic images? I am not aware of any surviving reference photos from the 1920s and 30s that can be compared to the finished works they were used for, so perhaps that matter can't be resolved. Given that Brownie was highly skilled, I'll assume he used his photos as the starting point and didn't copy them slavishly.

Brownie was good, successful, and popular socially. Still, I place him a fraction of a notch below the likes of F.R. Gruger and Henry Patrick Raleigh who used similar media in their illustration work.

Gallery

Brownie with his fancy new 1927 Packard. He made a lot of money in the 1920s, but was badly hit in the 1929 stock market crash.

A publicity photo of Brownie at work in the mid-1940s.

Another publicity shot. Here he and Russell Patterson are sketching Florence Kallender in tony Palm Beach Florida, 1947. Brownie was perfectly capable of sketching, but as was mentioned above, he normally used reference photos.

Greta Garbo, done in 1937.

Note Brownie's skill in depicting facial expressions.

A 1920s story illustration.

Illustration for a 1930 Saturday Evening Post story.

1937 story illustration.

A Post illustration from 1935.

By the 1940s, two-color magazine interior printing was common, so Brownie adjusted.  Some other two-color illustrations are seen above.  The first also is from the early 1940s and the next was done in 1937, as noted.

Ted Rand: Local Illustrator Who Made Good

Eons ago, when I was majoring in commercial art at the University of Washington, the Big Man in the Seattle illustration scene was Ted Rand (1915-2005).

There were other competent illustrators working in Seattle back in the days when the Seattle area was far from the world-class place it is now. The same can probably be accurately said for many mid-size metropolitan areas back when the nationally-known illustrators worked out of the New York City area (mostly), Chicago (to a lesser extent) and San Francisco (somewhat). Today's example features Seattle, because that's the place I knew about at the time.

Rand was the top illustrator locally in part because his work was featured in Pendleton ads that appeared in national publications. The other local guy with national cred was cartoonist Irwin Kaplan, who I wrote about here. As I mentioned in that post, Kaplan taught a fashion illustration class, and Rand appeared there once as a guest lecturer. Later on, Rand taught at Washington; too bad I missed out on that.

A biographical note on Rand is here, and a two-page obituary is here. As best I can tell, he had little or no art training beyond high school, so he must have been a "natural." Also noteworthy is that, at around age 65, he shifted professional gears to become a prolific writer and illustrator of children's books.

Gallery

The images above look like they might be two segments from a horizontal spread (note the Frederick & Nelson logotype split). Frederick's was the leading Seattle department store into the 1960s.

Rand's work appeared nationwide during the 1950s when he illustrated ads for Portland, Oregon's Pendleton.

Here are two of his book covers.