How Much Did Dean Cornwell's Style Change?

Dean Cornwell (1892-1960) was one of the most outstanding American illustrators of his day. I wrote an "Up-Close" post about him here, and here I observed that changing illustration fashions forced him to alter his style by the 1940s and 50s -- a change for the worse, in my opinion. Between his interesting, bold, painterly style of the 1920s and his late work, Cornwell spent a good deal of time and effort as a painter of murals, and requirements for mural painting also affected his illustration style to some degree.

But it seems I need to change my mind ... a little, at least. Early this year this book about Cornwell was published. It contains large details of some Cornwell illustrations that indicate he didn't change his style as completely as I had assumed. Chalk some of that up to the fact Internet images tend to be fairly small, and a large painting reduced to 600 by 800 pixels, say, loses a good deal of detail.

Below are some images of Cornwell's work to illustrate my point regarding style continuity. All can be enlarged by clicking on them, and a few are very large. I note the latter in the captions.

Gallery

From "The Desert Healer" - 1922
An example of Cornwell's 1920s style. Brushwork is bold and visible aside from certain details that are smoothly rendered.

From "Sergeant of Chasseurs" - Cosmopolitan, April 1929
The face of the girl in the red cloche hat is smoothly painted, but most of the rest features Cornwell's usual style. Click on the image for significant enlargement.

From "The Lady Said Goodbye" - 1941
Following fashion, Cornwell used a more "hard edge" approach in this illustration. The woman's face, hands, leg, scarf and dress lack the painterly touch. Ditto the brim of the man's hat.

Couple above stream - c. 1938
I'm not sure about this illustration's date. The woman's hair style could be 1936-49 or perhaps earlier, and her dress is pre-1940. She and her accessories are not rendered in Cornwell's painterly style, though much of the rest of the illustration is.

From "The Robe" - 1947
I used this illustration in the earlier post where I showed how Cornwell's style had changed to suit the times. However, as in the previous two images, we see that his adjusted style is mostly for the main subjects. Backgrounds and other details bear evidence of his earlier technique. Click on the image for significant enlargement.

From "The Robe" (detail) - 1947
Another illustration from the series. The cavorting Romans in the foreground as well as much of the setting recall his earlier work.

"Fara Swears Revenge" from "The Big Fisherman" - 1948
Another example where parts of the illustration followed Cornwell's earlier practice. Click on the image for significant enlargement.

Land of Tropical Splendor - c. 1950
This was done for a Colombian fruit promotion. I'm not at all sure of its date. This is a case where very little of the classical Cornwell style can be found. Click on the image for significant enlargement.

My New Book: How Cars Faced the Market

My latest e-book has just been released at Amazon.com. That's the cover above.

It deals with automobile grilles and other details of the “face” or front end of a car. Facial appearance has long been an important consideration in the automobile industry because it is a major means by which people – especially potential buyers – identify makes of cars.

Over the years, different brands (actually their management, stylists, marketing and advertising personnel and consultants) have taken varying approaches to continuity of styling themes for fronts of their cars. The degree of such continuity is the theme of this book.

More than 30 brands are dealt with here, some sketchily, others in detail, depending on the points I think need to be made.

In most cases, there is considerable model-year coverage for American cars from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. That is because this was the time when styling evolution largely ended, when cars received so-called “envelope” bodies where fenders and other items were no longer the clearly distinct objects they were before. Therefore stylists began to grapple with new themes that were more fashion-related than having to do with goal-related lines of body development.

Chapters are ordered alphabetically by brand, so readers are urged to first read the Introduction and then skip around the chapters depending upon their interest in the various makes of cars. The format of the chapters can be characterized as a series of captions to the images presented.

Brands covered are Rolls-Royce, Plymouth and Volkswagen (in the Introduction), followed by in separate chapters: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Bugatti, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge, Ford, Honda (Civic), Hudson, Imperial/Chrysler Imperial, Jaguar, Lancia, LaSalle, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, Nash, Oldsmobile, Packard, Pontiac, Saab, Studebaker and Volvo.

Thanks to Amazon's automated conversion-to-Kindle processing, the illustrations are not as large as they were in my Word draft. Therefore, for people buying the book, I suggest they download it to their device with the largest available screen.

But thanks again to Amazon, if you have a desktop computer or a laptop with a reasonably large screen, they have a free Kindle App that displays the book and lets you size a page so that the images are as large as they were originally. Of course, you need to have already purchased the book and downloaded it to your iPad, Kindle or other device before you can access it via the app.

Sprites by Iannelli and (probably) Wright

I seldom post here regarding sculpture. That's because I've never really sculpted, and therefore am reluctant to discuss something I'm not familiar with on a technical basis. But I am willing to comment about sculptures that I like or hate from the perspective of a casual observer.

Such is the case now with "sprites." The sprites I'm presenting below are some of the sprites designed as decorations for Chicago's Midway Gardens (1914-1929), a dining, drinking and amusement place on the city's south side near the University of Chicago campus. It was never really successful, at first due to being undercapitalized and later because of Prohibition (of alcoholic drinks in the USA 1920-33). Chicago's climate might have been another factor. There were several sprite designs, and some were preserved before Midway Gardens was demolished.

The architect for Midway Gardens was Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), who claimed responsibility for the sprite sculptures. But the working sculptor of those sprites was Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) whose later career included industrial design. So who actually designed those sprites, Wright or Iannelli? Nowadays, Iannelli is usually given the credit. But Wright paid a great amount of attention to the ornamentation of his buildings and surely had strong ideas as to what those decorative sprites should like. He must have set the theme and must have approved of the final designs even if the unlikely case that he never made a sketch of their form and decorative details was true. That is, he probably was fairly deeply involved with the sprites and does deserve as much or more credit than Iannelli.

Whatever actually happened in the architectural and sculpting studios took place more than 100 years ago, so we will never know the true story with certainty.

Stylistically, the Midway Gardens sprites are of the geometric branch of Art Nouveau, as opposed to what might be called "organic" Art Nouveau that featured tendrils and other plant-related decoration. It was the geometric Art Nouveau that transitioned into geometric Art Deco (which also had a curved branch ... consider those deer and borzoi dog decorations).

Earlier this year I was in the Phoenix, Arizona area, where sprites (or reproductions) are found. Below are some photos I took.

Gallery

Here are two sprites on the front lawn of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel (1929), a building where Wright served as a consultant to the architect of record.

A sprite found elsewhere on the grounds of the Biltmore.

Its pose is rigid, the face has a serious expression.

The sprites on the front lawn have tilted heads and they are smiling. Their decorations are different from those on the other sprite.

I spotted this sprite on the grounds of Taliesin West, Wright's winter stomping ground. It has the serious, rigid pose and for some reason is painted, the colors being American Southwest desert-related.

David Jagger, Skilled Portrait Artist

David Jagger (1891-1958) was very good at depicting people.

Although his images were highly realistic, they very seldom crossed the line into hard-edge style. His subjects were often posed in interesting ways (aside from in many commissioned, official-appearing portraits). In general, I find his works interesting, pleasing and impressive thanks to his skill in making them.

On the other hand, Jagger's paintings are so reality-oriented that they often give no hint of a personal style. To put it another way, his personal style was so attuned to representation that, in most instances, it can be hard for a viewer to think "Aha! That's a Jagger." Exceptions are some dramatic paintings of women that might be said to have a "Jagger look."

Apparently not much is known about his life. For what it's worth, here is his Wikipedia entry. And for your amusement, you might try this link wherein an art scholar (I presume) tries without much success to fit Jagger's work into a 21st century ideological procrustean bed.

Below are examples of his work. For more examples of his commissioned portraits, link here.

Gallery

Jagger painting actress Vivien Leigh - Sept, 1941 (copyright NPG)
This shows how well Jagger could nail his subjects' appearance.

Lord Baden-Powell - 1929
According to Wikipedia, this is Jagger's most famous painting. That said, I don't consider it his best or most interesting.

HRH Queen Mary - 1930
He was able to land commissions from important people.

Charles Jagger - the artist's brother - 1917
The date by the signature looks a lot like 1914, but the clothing is more suggestive of the 1917 British army. This shows that Jagger could paint freely if he chose to do so.

Portrait of Mrs. Kate Irene Pears

Kathleen - the artist's wife
A nice, dramatic pose and many soft edges help us to focus on her face.

Sewing - the artists's wife
No date on this one either, but Kathleen looks a few years older than she did in the previous portrait. Much thin painting here. Perhaps Jagger was experimenting. Some of the paintings below might also be of Kathleen (note the eyebrows).

Lady with a Fan
I don't notice a fan, but that's the title the Internet gives me. Regardless, this is a very interestingly composed painting that looks like it dates from the mid-1930s.

Woman with a Silk Scarf - 1926
The Internet has it that it's a scarf, though to me it almost seems she's wearing what looks like a shawl, due its size. This painting is more thinly painted than most of the others shown here, revealing that Jagger could and did alter his style at times.

Woman with teacup
A dramatic expression on a face with odd features -- note the eyes and area around the mouth. The hand and cup/saucer are hard-edge, unlike the rest of the painting. Makes me wonder if these details were unfinished in spite of the artist's signature indicating completion.

Lady in Green
Yet another of those dramatic, interesting poses. Notice that Jagger places a dark background object behind the subject's head to create a central dark zone from top to bottom, contrasting with the light gray background areas.

Portrait of a Lady
Here Jagger delves deeper into hard-edge territory. The background reminds me of George Washington Lambert's 1905-10 works. The subject's face is one of the more softly-painted parts of the image.

Portrait of a woman - 1945
A sketch or study done later than the others shown here.

Carel Willink's Imaginary Realism

Carel Willink (1900-1983) experimented with various Modernist "isms," finally settling into a version of "Magic Realism" that he called "Imaginary Realism." Essentially, everything in his paintings was done in a realistic manner, but placed in unusual circumstances, as the images below indicate. I find them strange, yet oddly appealing.

Willink's short Wikipedia entry is here and a useful chronology on a website devoted to him is here.

Besides his Imaginary Realist paintings, Willink made a good living as a portrait artist, his portraits usually featuring the hard-edge style of his other works.

Gallery

Farmhouse with tree - 1918
Painted before he assumed his signature style.

Stadsgesicht (Cityscape) - 1934

The Dirigible - 1933

Self-Portrait with Wilma van der Meulen - 1934
Wilma was his first wife. She died in 1960.

Landschap met omvergeworpen beeld - 1942

Mathilde tussen de monsters - 1966
Mathilde de Doelder was another wife -- his second according to the second link above. Some sources state that he had four wives; if so, Mathilde would be the third. A while after they divorced, she was found dead, naked in bed, a gunshot wound to the left temple and a gun held in her right hand. These last two details lead some to speculate that she was murdered.

Reclining Venus - 1975
The subject is Sylvia Quiël, Willink's last wife, some 44 years younger than he. She has devoted the time since his 1983 death to her art and his memory.

Willink painting Sylvia

The Slightly Surreal, Illustration-Like Intellectual Art of Mark Tansey

Late February, we visited The Broad, a new museum in downtown Los Angeles (background here). The collection of Eli and Edythe Broad is housed there, a collection focused on postmodern art of the period 1960-1990, if the impression it gave me is halfway correct.

I am not a fan of the kind of art. Nevertheless, I did come across a few artists and their works that interested me. One of these was Mark Tansey (b. 1949) who I was essentially unaware of. Some background regarding him can be found here, here and here.

Some examples of his work are below. All the paintings date from 1979-90, a period when he did what I consider his most interesting work.

Gallery

The Innocent Eye Test - 1981

The Occupation - 1984
1980s New York City occupied by 1914-vintage troop from Imperial Germany.

Triumph of the New York School - 1984
Allegory showing Great War clothed French artists surrendering to World War 2 garbed New York modernists.

Triumph ... key to depictions
I found this helpful graphic on the web.

Action Painting II - 1984

Forward Retreat - 1986

Forward Retreat: flipped detail
I took this photo at The Broad.  From right to left are (1) a 1917 Great War French soldier, (2) a 1914 German Great War Soldier, (3) a 1917 Great War British or American soldier, and (4) a polo player.

Constructing the Grand Canyon - 1990

A Short History of Modernist Painting - 1979-80
Another painting I saw at The Broad.  Below are some detail photos I took.

History ... detail

History ... another detail

History ... yet another detail

Dying Magazines and the Fall of Traditional Illustration

Leif Peng had an interesting 26 October 2011 post on his Today's Inspiration blog regarding the decline and death of some general-interest magazines that had supported what I'll call traditional illustration.

Such magazines were called "slicks" because they were printed on smooth paper instead of cheaper newsprint or rough-textured "pulp" paper. Many of these magazines had circulations in the millions of copies when the U.S. population ranged from around 63 million in 1890 to about 180 million in 1960 (the number now is more than 320 million).

The archetypical general-interest magazine was the Saturday Evening Post, whose content was a mix of short stories and non-fiction articles, the former being decorated by images from famous illustrators. Covers also used illustration, the two most prolific cover illustrators being J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.

The advent of radio in the 1920s had no noticeable effect on circulation of "slicks," and the most prominent ones also weathered the Great Depression of the 1930s. What brought them down was television, following the end of the 1948-1952 TV station license moratorium resulting in a surge of new television stations rapidly spreading across the United States.

Below is a listing of prominent magazines with their prime publication lifespans.

Saturday Evening Post -- 1897-1963 (as a weekly publication)

Collier's -- 1888-1957 (the Post's main competitor)

The American Magazine -- 1906-1956

Liberty -- 1924-1950

McCall's -- 1973-2002

Ladies' Home Journal -- 1883-2014 (as a weekly or bi-weekly)

Life -- 1936-1972 (Time, Inc. version)

Look -- 1937-1971 (like Life, was photo oriented)

I included Look Magazine because it is another good example of a mass-circulation publication that failed to survive very far beyond the 1960s. McCall's was a magazine for women that included short stories illustrated by many of the top names in the field, including Bernie Fuchs. The American and Liberty were lesser general-interest magazines. The Time Incorporated version of Life (they bought the title from an existing magazine) was primary photograph-oriented. But when dealing with subjects where good photos were unavailable, leading illustrators were brought in to provide images.