Book About Henry Patrick Raleigh

Henry Patrick Raleigh (1880-1944) was one of those illustrators who both captured and helped to define glamorous aspects of 1920s and early 1930s America.

David Apatoff's take on Raleigh's style is well worth reading. And here is a web site devoted to Raleigh.

His son Christopher did a book on Raleigh a few years ago and provided the text for a new book about the man and his art by Auad Publishing Company (web site here). This book can be ordered via that site or, for those who prefer to use Amazon, the link to it is here.

Christopher Raleigh's account is both interesting and useful. The quality of the reproductions, especially those in color, is uneven. That might have been due the need to scan publications printed 90 or so years ago when printing quality was not nearly as good as now and where the paper the illustrations were printed on has suffered from age. Some or even many of the reproductions might have come from original works in Christopher Raleigh's collection. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to identify reproduction sources other than those from scans of advertisements. Identification of dates and publications of illustrations is sketchy: one "unknown" illustration is shown in a photo of an assemblage of Saturday Evening Post pages on the final page of the book, another's date is fairly clearly seen by Raleigh's signature).  However, most readers can estimate approximate dates by the depicted women's fashions, and few readers would be familiar with the stories and situations Raleigh was illustrating, so precise identification isn't very important in most cases.

Quibbles aside, the book's value lies in the biographical information and, especially, the many wonderful illustrations Henry Raleigh made during his heyday. It's well worth its price.

A Review, then Towards the End: Hugh Ferriss

Hugh Ferriss (1889–1962) is my favorite architectural delineator. He has plenty of other fans, if the nearly 200,000 results from Googling his name is any indication. A brief Wikipedia entry about him is here.

Ferriss is probably best known for two aspects of his work. The first deals with 1920-1930 renderings of skyscrapers actually built or that were proposed but not built for one reason or another. The other is the set of speculative rendering of a future city collected in his book "Metropolis of Tomorrow" (1929). Many of these images are iconic of their times.

He usually rendered using pencils, charcoal and related shading media. This suited the high-rise architectural themes of the 1920s -- styles known as Art Deco and something that might be called streamlined Gothic.

The 1930s saw the Great Depression with its general lack of new construction aside from government buildings that often featured highly simplified classic themes with a hint of Deco. Post- World War 2 architecture soon conformed to International Style dictates. That is, tall buildings were severely rectangular with glass-and-steel cladding while lacking any form of decoration.

Ferriss' successful 1920s rendering style and mediums were not really appropriate for depicting International Style buildings. They worked best with buildings with more intricate shapes, stone or brick cladding, and ornamentation. Although he was involved in some major projects, the resulting renderings were not nearly as impressive as his earlier works. This was despite an effort to adjust his style to the new circumstances.

Gallery

Wanamaker's Bridge (New York City) - 1917
Wanamaker's was a major Philadelphia and New York City department store.

American Radiator Building (New York City) - completed 1924
The building still stands on West 40th Street across from Bryant Park.

Fisher Building (Detroit) - 1928
Located on West Grand Boulevard across the street from what then was General Motors' headquarters.

The Majestic Hotel (Chanin Construction Co.) - 1930
A speculative project, probably in New York City.

Future city scene
As was the case for the previous images, Ferriss' style matched the architectural style very well.

Metropolis of Tomorrow - 1928
Again, the buildings are sculpted masses where windows are comparatively small details.

Metropolis of Tomorrow - c.1928
Dramatic night scene. I wish I were at that cocktail party on the terrace at the lower right of the rendering.

United Nations Headquarters - c.1948
A proposed ensemble.

United Nations Headquarters - c.1948
More about the UN Headquarters here. Design began in 1947, a cornerstone was laid in 1949 and the initial grouping was completed by 1952. The tall Secretariat building is steel-and-glass on the longer sides, and all this reflective material is hard to depict using Ferriss' toolkit. Here he did his best to emphasize massing rather than fenestration.

Lever House (New York City) - c.1949
The Lever House, built 1950-52, was an early International Style office building in New York. Sensational when it was new, but now nondescript. It is on the west side of Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets. In this rendering, Ferriss selected a night setting that allowed him to capture some of the structural elements without the complication of reflections off the glass.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - c.1959
The main Lincoln Center groundbreaking was in 1959, and the original ensemble largely complete by 1966. Shown here is the Metropolitan Opera House. It was completed in 1966. Given that Ferriss died in January 1962, it is likely that this is one of his last renderings.

Austin Briggs, an Illustrator Who Could Really Draw

Austin Briggs (1908-1973) never settled into a distinctive style, shifting over time according to his personal artistic development and the influence of changing illustration fashions and client expectations. What was consistent was his great skill in drawing people.

A short Wikipedia biography is here and a fairly brief biography on the Norman Rockwell Museum site is here. A more detailed biography can be found here. Commentary on his methods is here. Some statements by Briggs himself are here and here. David Apatoff writes about Briggs' sketchbooks here.

Briggs was a top-notch illustrator. I hope a book about him and his art is in the works somewhere.

Gallery

Flash Gordon - Sunday spread - 21 December 1947
Briggs drew the daily Flash Gordon comic strip and later took over the traditional Sunday version from its creator, Alex Raymond. Raymond was the best at drawing it, but Briggs was not far behind.

American Airlines ad - Saturday Evening Post - 15 January 1949

American Airlines ad art

Plymouth ad art - late 1940s
This was an odd advertising campaign for a low-priced car because a Plymouth does not appear. Some luxury can brands had used this strategy, however, apparently somewhat successfully.

Illustration - c. 1957

Ad art - 1951
I'm not sure if this is for Buick or American Airlines. And it might not be for an advertisement. I am clueless regarding this.

Briggs illustrated for American Airlines and General Motors. The DC-6 in the background is positioned similarly to such planes in a series of American Airlines ads, but it lacks the complete AA paint scheme. The Buick is clearly a Buick, not the sort of anonymous car design illustrators placed in settings unrelated to a specific automobile brand. The Buick also seems to have a New York license plate, something unusual in car ad illustrations.

Nero Wolfe story illustration

Archie Goodwin depicted in a Nero Wolfe story illustration - Saturday Evening Post - 21 June 1958

Service with a Smile - Douglas Aircraft ad art
From the days when smoking was allowed on flights.

Drawing

Cyrus, the Senior Cuneo

Cyrus Cincinnati Cuneo (1879-1916) died young from a freak accident: blood poisoning from a hatpin prick at a dance.

At the time, he was a successful illustrator and painter based in England. Today he might be better known as being the father of Terence Cuneo, a beloved and honored British illustrator.

But he wasn't British by origin. Cyrus (or "Ciro" as he was called) was born in San Francisco to Italian immigrants, growing up in the North Beach part of town. He became a boxer to help support himself while studying art in Paris where he greatly impressed James McNeill Whistler, one of his teachers. A biographical note is here, and a PDF with useful information is here.

Cuneo was versatile, as can be seen in the collection below.

Gallery

Illustration from a book of A.J. Raffles stories by E.W. Hornung

Canadian trapper attacked by wolves
Cuneo spent some time in Canada, mostly doing artwork for Canadian Pacific.  This illustration might be for a fiction piece.

Frontispiece for "The Air Patrol" by Herbert Strang (pseudonym)

The Sinking of the Gneisenau
This looks like an Illustrated London News sort of illustration. The Gneisenau was a German cruiser, part of Admiral von Spee's fleet that was mostly destroyed by the British in the Battle of the Falklands, 8 December 1914.

Japanese Tea Garden
Now for a change of pace from book and magazine illustration ...

The Picnic

Nell Marion Tenison - the artist's wife

The Diners - 1913

Arriving at the Ball

Edmund F. Ward

Edmund Franklin Ward (1892-1990) was not as famous as some other illustrators during the 1890-1960 heyday of American magazine illustration. But he was competent and had his successes, especially in the 1920s.

Ward's brief Wikipedia entry is here and other links touching on his career are here and here.

As can be seen below, his 1920s style is similar to that of contemporary illustrators such as Dean Cornwell who painted in thick oils. As many other illustrators did, Ward altered his style and media to go along with changing illustration fashion. One result of this is that there is no distinctive Ward style.

Gallery

Dean Cornwell illustration - 1919
Compare the 1920s illustrations by Ward below to this Cornwell.

Trouble on the Trail - 1923

The Stowaway - The Kelly Collection - 1924

We Mean Business - Kelly Collection - 1924

Egyptian vignette - 1923
Vignette format illustration was common for secondary story illustrations. The lead illustration might have conventional rectangular borders, but others in the same magazine piece or illustrations in later issues containing other parts of the same, continuing story might be vignetted.

Vignette - story illustration

Vignette- story illustration

Vignette - Saturday Evening Post story illustration

Caught in the Act
This possibly unfinished illustration or study was made around the mid-1930s. Note that the green hat in the mirror is not that same shape as the one in the foreground.

Thunder on the Plains - This Week magazine, February 1936
Here we see a change to watercolor or perhaps colored inks.

GE Lamps advertisement - 1946
An example of Ward's postwar work.

Albert Guillaume at the Theatre

Albert Guillaume (1873-1942) was a French illustrator and painter with a satirical mindset. His Wikipedia entry is here.

Guillaume usually poked fun at the haute bourgeoisie, so for this post I decided to present some of his works dealing with the theatre.

Gallery

Musique savante
The music lover seems inspired, but I'm not so sure about the others nearby.

La Loge au théâtre
He tended to depict pretty younger women with older men, so maybe there was a good deal of that during the Belle Époque and later.

Les admiratrices (Lucien Guitry dans sa loge) - 1922

Private opera box
A group utterly fixated on what's happening on stage.

Au theatre - 1920s

Les retardataires
The performance of the late arrivals.

Terence Cuneo Sampler

Terence Cuneo (1907-1996) was a prominent British illustrator who specialized in mechanical objects, yet was quite capable of depicting people -- something some tech artists have trouble with. On the other hand, there are a number of artists who are good at people but have serious trouble with things such as cars and airplanes. So Cuneo, himself the son of a successful illustrator, was something of an all-rounder. His limitation was that he was a run-of-the-mill storyteller in the illustration sense. That is, he could depict scenes of fierce action, but they usually were a kind of snapshot without much of a plot or backstory. To some degree that might have been what his clients wanted, so I can't quite be categorical regarding this.

Cuneo's Wikipedia entry is here, and here is a link to my post about his railroad illustrations.

This post shows examples of Cuneo's work over the range of his typical subjects.

Gallery

Railroad illustration: "Crossing the Forth"

The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, 27 May 1942.

Coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 1953. This image from the internet seems to be slightly cropped at the sides and bottom.

The Festival of Britain was an exposition held in 1951, and The Illustrated London News was a major publication at the time. Note Cuneo's signature in the pennant at the lower right. London fans will note that the Festival grounds are between the County Hall building and the power station that is now the Tate Modern art gallery. The large, flat-domed building is inland from the location of the present London Eye ferris wheel. This illustration combines architecture and human figures, the latter painted in part with flat brush strokes, something we will also see below.

"The First Air Post" painted in 1978 shows that Cuneo was comfortable dealing with aircraft.

This is a Bristol Beaufighter having a torpedo loaded. I consider Cuneo generally better than Frank Wootton when depicting aircraft, and Wootton was hardly a slouch (though he could be sloppy getting correct proportions).

Bristol Aircraft Company assembly line, 1944, showing Beaufighters.

Another assembly line painting (and he did at least one other!), this of Ford in 1947.

Probably brochure illustrations for the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire 234 or 236, painted 1955 or thereabouts. Cuneo was good at cars.

Coastal battery scene. I don't know when this was painted, but the period it depicts is probably 1940 when the British were preparing to repel a possible German invasion.

Detail of a painting showing the Kidney Ridge or Snipe Action in North Africa. Note Cuneo's brushwork: simple, but quite effective.