Walt Kelly's Pogo Brushwork

The Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly (1913-1973), whose life was cut short at age 60 by diabetes, was beloved by many.

I read it some when I was young, but had trouble following it. Plus, I suppose I wasn't intelligent enough or sophisticated enough to appreciate the politics Kelly injected into the strip. Even today, I think Pogo would have been better had it stuck to the foibles of life and personalities because injecting politics upsets or angers a good deal of one's potential audience.

That aside, Kelly's cartooning style was marvelously inventive. I show some examples below that I grabbed off the Web so that readers unfamiliar with Pogo can see what I mean. For instance, note Kelly's use of a variety of typescripts in the second image. Also observe the outlines of the panel boxes; hand-drawn and bold. Most of all, consider Kelly's combination of strong brushwork and body action for his subjects -- this probably thanks to his days working for Walt Disney.

Gallery

Self-portrait

Kelly's use of type

Albert and bird

Original art with non-reproducing blueline workup

Everett Shinn, Who Would Rather Do Theatre

Edward Shinn (1876-1953) was the youngest of New York's famed Ashcan School of realist painters active early in the last century. Biographical information can be found here and here.

It seems that Shinn, like other Ashcan artists from Philadelphia, got his start as a newspaper illustrator. And he continued to illustrate long after he took up painting, this to help pay his bills when needed.

Besides painting and illustration he became deeply involved in theatrical activities. Later he extended this to professional work as an art director for movie studios.

A 1901 visit to Paris acquainted him with the works of Edgar Degas which strongly inspired him, as can be seen below, especially in his "The Orchestra Pit." Of course Shinn painted landscapes, city scenes and other subjects, but I thought it might be interesting to focus here are theater-inspired paintings. All shown here were made in the early 1900s with the exception of the one of the night club that was done around 30 years later.

Gallery

Spanish Music Hall - 1902

Girl on Stage - 1906

The Orchestra Pit (Old Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre) - 1906

Theatre Box - 1906

Review - 1908

Night Club Scene - 1934

Helen Dryden: From Illustration to Industrial Design

Helen Dryden (1887-1981), according to her Wikipedia entry, spent most of her art school years working to become a landscape painter. And afterwards she shifted to commercial art, becoming a cover illustrator for Vogue magazine. (More biographical information is here.)

By 1914 she was doing costume and set design for theater, though Wikipedia does not provide information regarding how many productions she worked on.

Besides fashion-related illustration, by the late 1920s Dryden was practicing what was becoming known as industrial design. I could find no examples of this work to present below. She consulted for Studebaker in the later 1930s, probably mostly dealing with interiors. Studebaker advertising credited designs to her, though Raymond Loewy also began working with Studebaker in 1936. Since he had had previous experience styling Hupmobiles, he probably did exterior work, but the advertising featured her probably because she was better known at the time.

The Wikipedia entry indicates that she had fallen on hard times by the mid 1950s. If her year of death was 1981, I wonder how she managed to survive for another 25 years; the entry implies city welfare.

Gallery

Vogue - 15 July 1914

Fashion Fête program cover - November 1914

Vogue (UK) - April 1919

Vogue (UK) - 1 November 1920

Delineator - July 1929

Delineator - October 1929

1936 Studebaker Advertisement crediting Dryden

Viewing Nicolai Fechin

For those of you who can get to Seattle by 19 May, consider visiting the Frye Museum which has an exhibit of paintings and drawings by Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955).

Fechin's Wikipedia entry is here and I wrote about his Taos, New Mexico house and studio here. But if you have time to go to only one link, go here to Matthew Innis' blog for biographical information plus details concerning Fechin's palette and technique (the latter Innis regards with horror).

Fechin's basic style changed little from the time he completed his training, though individual works fell within a range of "painterlyness" (I made that word up, I think) from kinda finished to pretty sloppy, the more finished examples being commissioned portraits. While I can't say that I love Fechin's paintings, I find them interesting and instructive.

The archetypical Fechin painting featuring a human subject follows a formula. Skin, especially the female face, is depicted smoothly; Innis states that Fechin would wet his fingers with his tongue and finger-paint the smoothness. Subjects' hands were more likely to be done in a sketchy manner, while nude bodies fell somewhere between. Backgrounds are typically highly sketchy and painterly to the point that they often seem like the New York school of Abstract Expressionist art from the 1950s. Sometimes recognizable objects appear, other times not. Being somewhat lazy myself, I wonder if Fechin adopted this kind of background treatment to avoid having to get bogged down painting details.

The exhibit at the Frye was an excellent opportunity to examine a large number of Fechin paintings and draw some conclusions of my own. Below are a few examples of Fechin's work to set the scene; the lower two were on display.

Gallery

Konstantin Mihailovich Lepilov, artist - 1909

Portrait of My Father - 1912

Eya in Peasant Blouse - 1933

The upper two paintings are of men, so the faces are not smooth, in contrast to the lower portrait of Fechin's daughter. In many of his works, Fechin's application of paint ranges from thin to thick. In the portrait of his father, you can see thinly painted sketch lines and washes supplemented by built-up areas for the background and flesh. The Lepilov portrait is also fairly early and follows the same pattern, Eya's portrait was made more than 20 years after his father's, and is more typical,

Images of Fechin's paintings fail to convey the actual appearance more than in most cases because his work usually contains passages of heavy impasto than can be hard to discern. In the case of Eya, if you click on the image to enlarge, you might be able to notice extremes of thick and thin paint in the lower right quadrant of the painting. In some cases, Fechin painted thickly with a brush, and at other times, use of a palette knife is evident. Innis says that he would apply with a brush first and then swipe with the knife at an angle to the brushstroke.

Innis also asserts that Fechin's techiques resulted in his paintings being in bad shape even before they were finished. Whereas I do not doubt that, nearly all the works I saw at the Frye seemed to be in good condition. Given Fechin's use of both washes and impasto on completed paintings, such works would probably be a nightmare to restore, so I contend that many have aged well.

A Fine Noel Sickles Illustration

Above is a slightly cropped image of a Noel Sickles (1910-1982) illustration intended for a Life magazine article during World War 2. Sickles was a hugely talented, largely self-taught draftsman who worked in the Associated Press bullpen, then drew the Scorchy Smith comic strip for three years before becoming a successful illustrator. His Wikipedia entry is here. Leif Peng discusses his military art here. David Apatoff comments on Sickles' drawing ability here. And here is one of my takes on Sickles.

The illustration at the top of this post was not used. What Life did publish is here:

I prefer the rejected image as an example of extremely well made illustration. The Life illustration might have been selected because it was a better teaching tool for soldiers encountering armor.

I like the unused illustration for several reasons. Perhaps its best attribute beyond Sickle's accuracy in depicting soldiers and the German Pkw IV is the economy of detail. For example, the tank is not so much a collection of lines as it is a study in darks, middle values and (comparative) lights. The American soldiers are also rendered in a sketchy, slightly impressionistic manner. Folds of the uniforms are highly simplified, yet convey the shapes of the individuals. Helmets are accurately shaped by line and shadow. This is important because many illustrators and painters seem unable to depict helmets convincingly (I'm thinking of you, Sir William Orpen!).

The soldier's poses are also convincingly shown. My one gripe is that, probably for reasons of pictorial composition, Sickles grouped the BAR gunner, Tommy gunner and Lieutenant with the carbine on his back too closely together for a real combat situation. A short machine gun burst or a single mortar shell could wipe out all three along with the rifleman to the right.

Bok's Singing Tower

It's a ways from the nearest freeway, but you can get there by mostly four-lane roads. So as far as I'm concerned, you have no excuse to miss it if you're anywhere near Orlando, Florida with its Disney World and other tourist attractions.

The "it" I refer to is the Bok Tower Gardens site just northeast of the town of Lake Wales. It interested me from the time I was in elementary school and saw it depicted in one of those cartoon maps featuring sights to see across the United States. But I never managed to visit it until recently.

The tower and its surrounding gardens were the creation of Edward W. Bok (October 9, 1863 – January 9, 1930) who died about a year after the site was dedicated. A short biographical item is here. Briefly, Bok was born in the Netherlands, but emigrated to the United States as a child. He married into the Curtis publishing family and was editor of the Ladies Home Journal magazine for decades. His grandson, Derek Bok, was president of Harvard University.

As this Wikipedia entry indicates, the tower and gardens project was begun in 1921 and dedicated February 1, 1929. Its site is atop one of the highest hills in nearly-flat peninsular Florida.

Landscaping was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the famous family perhaps best known for New York City's Central Park. The tower's architect was Milton B. Medary, who is little known today. Integral sculpting is by Lee Lawrie, a prolific sculptor active in the first half of the twentieth century whose best-known works include the Atlas in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Ironwork and the tower door were by Samuel Yellin.

I think the tower is an excellent example of a high point in American architectural form and detailing, where gothic-inspired skyscraper shaping was combined with a non-traditional ornamentation style that was called Moderne and now called Art Deco.

Below are some photos I took during my visit.

Gallery

Visitor Center courtyard
Note the exposed undersides of the roof tiles.

Display of construction photos

Looking up

General view

Top details by Lee Lawrie

Wrought iron gate by Samuel Yellin

Sundial
Note the inscription below. It mentions that President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the tower and gardens.

Lower level sculpting by Lee Lawrie

Arty views of the tower entrance
The white flowers and stone in front of the door mark Bok's grave.

Entry door by Samuel Yellin

The Bland Art of Fairfield Porter

I wrote a post called "The Bland Art of Giorgio Morandi. In that post, I blamed my assessment on the fact that I'm just not much into subtlety.

So along with Morandi, I'll toss in another painter whose work doesn't meet my need for flash and dash: Fairfield Porter (1907-1975). Porter's Wikipedia entry is here, and more information here.

On the other hand, some people I respect are Porter fans. Among them are The Wall Street Journal's theater critic Terry Teachout (see here, for instance) as well as my former 2Blowhards blogging colleagues (here).

Here are examples of Porter's work:

Gallery

Jane and Elizabeth

Porter painting ... the scene above?

Wheat - 1960

Broadway South of Union Square - 1974-75

Girl in a Landscape - 1965

A Day Indoors - 1962

Nothing wrong with Porter's work, mind you. It's just the eye of this particular beholder.