James Avati: Princeton Man Does Trash

I couldn't resist writing the title of this post even though it's a gross exaggeration.

James Avati (1912-2005) actually did go to Princeton, majoring in Architecture. On the other hand, he wasn't a member of Cannon or any of the other eating clubs, so he was hardly the archetypical Princeton Man of his times.

As for "trash," he made his career painting cover illustrations for paperback books, many of which dealt with gritty subjects.

Avati was largely self-taught, though he learned perspective and something about architectural rendering at Princeton and attended a two-month Army sponsored art class in France after the war in Europe ended.

During the early years of his paperback covers career, his technique was somewhat labored. Later on, his brushwork became more economical. But the important thing was his staging and psychological insight, and this resulted in his covers driving strong sales for the various publishers he worked for. Making a decent living in commercial art apparently more than compensated for his one-time plan to be a Fine Artist.

Gallery

Tobacco Road cover art

Goodbye to Berlin cover art

Love and Money cover art

Argosy Magazine story illustration

Louisville Saturday cover art

Rage of the Soul cover art

Beyond the Forest cover art

More and Better Karl Godwin

Karl Godwin (1893-1962) was an illustrator who never attained the first rank, yet did some interesting work in color in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I posted some images of his work here and here, and noted that about all the biographical information about him I could find was here.

Since then, I've made new scans of details of advertisements for Hudson cars and located images of one complete ad along with two others in the series. They are shown below along with other Godwin illustrations, some of which were in the posts noted above.  Click on them to enlarge.

Gallery

From Hudson advertisement

Entire ad spread - Literary Digest - 15 June 1929

From Hudson advertisement - 1929
I haven't yet found the actual ad this was part of.

Hudson advertisement - Literary Digest - 23 March 1929
Illustration signed by Godwin.

Hudson advertisement - Literary Digest - 16 January 1929
Unsigned, but could have been by Godwin.

Couple with wagon wheel
Magazine cover or story illustration. I don't have a date for this.

Ethyl advertisement - 1932

American Magazine story illustration - June 1933

The Augsburg Sailors - story illustration - 1940

McClelland Barclay's Gentle Smiles

McClelland Barclay (1891-1943) had a highly successful career in illustration until the ship he was on was sunk by the Japanese in the South Pacific during World War 2. Biographical information is here, and one of my previous references to him is here.

The theme of the present post originated in a fragment of an illustration for a Buick advertisement I noticed in a book. I don't know whether or not the image was cropped (I've failed to locate the original ad on the Internet), but what I have bears no signature.

The man and women pictured  in the car have gentle little smiles, an expression that strikes me as being surprisingly rare in advertising. So who painted that illustration? My guess is that it was Barclay. As evidence, I present below several known Barclay illustrations showing people with similar expressions. Furthermore, it is known that Barclay occasionally illustrated Buick advertisements. Let me know whether or not my guess is correct.

Gallery

Illustration for Buick advertisement - 1930
This is the unsigned (or cropped out) image and those gentle smiles.

College Humor cover - February 1926

Fond Departure - c.1922

Fisher Body advertisement - 1929

Fisher Body advertisement - 1928

Jantzen advertisement - 1926

Country Gentleman cover - February 1928

Country Gentlemen cover - April 1926

Boris Chaliapin: Time Magazine Cover Artist

Boris Chaliapin (1904–1979) was a son of famed Russian opera singer Fyodor Chaliapin. But being a post-revolution emigré, he had to forge his own career and did it very well. Over 1942-1970 he painted 414 covers for Time, America's leading weekly news magazine in those days.

Chaliapin seems to have been a fast worker -- hard to believe, given the amount of detail he normally placed on portraits and backgrounds. But over his 28-year grind with Time, he produced at the rate of slightly more than one cover illustration per month. And some were done on short notice such as the one of Queen Elizabeth, below, that appeared shortly after the death of her father, King George VI.

For a reason I find hard to understand, there is little in the way of biographical information on the Internet regarding Chaliapin. So allow me to offer as a link this post by David Apatoff who, like me, appreciates Chaliapin's wok.

Gallery

Olga Spessivtseva - 1932

Olga Spessivtseva - 1934
Two portraits of the Russian ballet dancer who was living in Paris in the early 1930s, as apparently was Chaliapin. They are included to show what he was capable of in his pre-Time days.

Queen Elizabeth - Time, 18 February 1952

John Wayne - Time, 3 March 1952
Magazine editors chose the subjects he painted. The cover subject was the basis for a long "cover story" inside that issue.

Rosalind Russell - Time, 30 March 1953
She was a Broadway and Hollywood star.

Walt Disney - Time, 27 December 1954
Disneyland was to open the following summer.

Marilyn Monroe - 14 May 1956
Still famous.

Le Corbusier - Time, 5 May 1961
The controversial modernist architect.

Charles de Gaulle - Time, 8 February 1963
France, personified.

Hubert Rogers: Sci-Fi Pulps and Much More

Hubert Rogers (1898-1982) was a Canadian illustrator/painter perhaps best known today for cover paintings for Astounding Science Fiction, generally considered the cream of the pulp Sci-Fi crop, thanks to its (1937-1971) editor John W. Campbell.

Regarding Rogers, this source mentions:

"In 1925 he moved to New York City to study with Dean Cornwell at the Art Students League."

"In 1931 the financial hardship of the Great Depression lead him to abandon city life. He drove an Indian motorcycle to Taos, New Mexico, where he worked within a community of artists that were as passionate about modern landscape painting as the Canadian 'Group of Seven.'"

But he returned to New York in 1936 after he got an increasing number of assignments. Rogers moved back to Canada in 1942 where he did illustrations to help the war effort. He moved to Vermont in 1947.

More on Rogers is here, and a source presenting letters to Rogers from leading science-fiction writers Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp is here.

Rogers was a competent illustrator who has to drop into working for "pulp" (cheap, low-quality paper) magazines to help get through the Great Depression. This is a slightly different career path than that for some slightly younger illustrators who had to start their career in pulps and then tried to claw their way to more respectable and better paying clients.

As can be seen below, Rogers' covers for Astounding were decently done, a cut well above the common 1940-vintage bug-eyed-monster-clutching-scantily-clad-blonde genre found on covers of some other sci-fi mags.

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Astounding Science Fiction cover - October 1939
One of Rogers' best-known Astounding covers.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - February 1940
The tank is a futuristic version of the Great War British Mark IV tank.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - August 1940
Streamlined space ship, though its tiny wings don't seem very functional.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - August 1941

Astounding Science Fiction cover - May 1947
Some sources consider this to be Rogers' best Astounding cover.

Preliminary sketch, Astounding Science Fiction cover - May 1947

Canadian World War 2 poster

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - final

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - preliminary

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - image for printer

The 1943 Quebec Conference - image copyright Canadian War Museum
Rogers was fully capable of doing paintings as well as illustrations.

Earl Mayan: Hard-Edge Illustrator

Earl Mayan (1916-2009) had a long life and a successful career in illustration and teaching. His Wikipedia entry is here and more biographical information here and here.

Even though he had success that included ten covers and a number of story illustrations in America's leading general-interest magazine of the day -- the Saturday Evening Post -- Mayan seems to be largely unknown today. Nothing unusual about that, actually. That's because there were more than a few illustrators who "hit the big-time" at the Post, but not consistently enough to develop a strong reputation in the readership and the public at large.

According to the second link above, Mayan painted portraits and landscapes, but I didn't notice any examples on the Internet. Too bad, because his style used for "slick" (paper quality) magazines was detailed and hard-edged -- not sketchy or painterly. So I am curious regarding his degree of versatility. His black & white story illustrations for "pulp" magazines in the 1930s are not painted and therefore aren't a basis for comparison.

Mayan's most elaborate illustrations are impressive in terms of the amount of work they required due to the large amount of detail depicted. He was a highly skilled illustration technician. I respect Mayan considerably, but due to quirks of personal taste, he doesn't rank with my favorites.

Gallery

Saturday Evening Post story illustration

Saturday Evening Post story illustration

Saturday Evening Post cover art (cropped at the top) - 23 April 1955

Saturday Evening Post cover - 20 April 1957
The subject is New York Yankees' legendary catcher Yogi Berra at work under a pop foul ball in Boston's Fenway Park.

Saturday Evening Post cover - 2 June 1956

Saturday Evening Post cover - 28 April 1956
For some reason (he might have been a fan), Mayan included a large number of English cars in this scene even though they were scarce on American streets in the 1950s.