Summertime is Time to Travel. The Wonders We Will See!

Being up to my neck in large scale projects this week—and for quite a few more to come— it's been easy to let days slide away, but I'm determined to attempt to maintain some regular connections.

Before any more time goes by, I have to alert VIEW's readers to two amazing shows currently on display in the Northeast corner of the US. The first is from some folks I'm proud to call friends, Pat and Jeannie Wilshire of Illuxcon fame have guest curated an exhibit now on display at the Allentown Art Museum in PA.

At the Edge is a show unlike any other I've ever known to have been assembled. It contains the best in "fantastic" art, (in the sense of "fantastical") from nearly 150 years ago up to the best Imaginative Realist painters going today. The list is mind-blowing. While the current crop of top illustrators makes an annual appearance at Illuxcon and is well represented in this show, it is the historical (i.e. "vintage")  stuff that this blog focuses on— and WOW, they've pulled some masterworks out from private collections (The Kelly Collection, and The Korshak Collection, and others). This is an extraordinary opportunity to see some outstanding pieces, from many of the artists that we discuss here with some regularity. Shown at the right, Dean Cornwell, Wladyslaw Benda, Edmund Dulac, J. C. Leyendecker and Franklin Booth... All in one place. Thanks to the Wilshires for permission to repost those images here on VIEW.

The Allentown show runs until September 9th, and appears to be continually hosting lectures by the biggest and the best. The Wilshires themselves will be there this Sunday, to present  a lecture on the imagery of the fantastic—Imagining Reality with Pat and Jeannie Wilshire (Roger Dean will be there a week from now...)  They are doing so much to help fantastic imagery get the respect it deserves. Worth a vacation day, for sure.

AND IF THAT'S NOT ENOUGH

The Howard Pyle Centennial exhibit is showing again, now located at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge Mass.

If you weren't able to make it when it was at the Delaware Art Museum, It will be in Mass. until October 28th. I posted some comments on the show when I first saw it, but I am planning on seeing it at the Rockwell also.

Time to hit the road.

Solid portraiture, from the Ukraine

Though I find small pockets of admiration for this illustrator around the web, I have no idea if my readers have found him, so it falls to me to point him out. That's the basic gist of what this is all about.

Years ago, in a legendary box delivered to me by the archivist at Dover, I found among the other treasures there, three plates by an artist whose name was new to me. Sigismund de Ivanowski (1875-1944) was Ukrainian born, he was taught in some of the best art cities of Europe, (Munich, Paris, London...) and by some of the best painters of the day. (James Whistler, anyone?)

After emigrating to the US in 1902, he made his home in NJ, and was active in the NYC art market, including a membership in the Society of Illustrators. Portraiture was his forté, and a series he ran with Century Magazine on Heroines in Literature lasted EIGHT years, from 1906-1914. I don't know the total number of pieces he did for that series, but it has my wheels turning. Most of the work of his that I have seen, has been from that group, as were those three plates in the box. Jane Eyre, (above) was one of the three, and years later, when Dover brought out a Thrift Edition of the tale, I knew there was no other image for our cover.

Ivanowski's illustration output seems to have waned in his later years, I imagine portraiture became the focus of the latter part of his career, though I found evidence that he did some teaching as well. Anyone have any info? 

The other plates were found perusing the net, and I should certainly point you over the great group of plates that turned up at GoldenAgeComicBookStories. If you haven't stumbled on this blog yet, Mr. Door Tree does a great service uncovering Golden Age material over there.

There was also a fantastic story about the search for, and the background on (another version?!?) of the last piece here, of Maude Adams as Peter Pan—by another artist. The story is the kind of bookstore/garage sale archeology we are all hoping to stumble across. (My own take on this, is that the painting in the story, is very likely to have been done after Ivanowski's Peter Pan. Copying art from early print was a convenient way to learn to paint at that time, and these early color plates would have been ideal subject matter.) Could it possibly be Ivanowski's own color sketch? The color palettes are too close for one not to have been related to the other.

Second Generation

It is not that uncommon for a group of siblings to grow up to be artists (in this case, illustrators) together. Growing up in a house that encouraged creativity, spurred on by a desire to outdo each other, families like the Robinsons, the Brocks, and the Leyendeckers, all yielded more than one successful career illustrator. On what seems to me to be be a somewhat rarer occasion, a child follows in the career of the parent. I don't think this happens as frequently due to the fact that following a parent—who has a generation of experience more—would often seem an insurmountable task for a child to form their own identity. (Though sometimes following a path already blazed is the easier route)  If it does happen, there is often some deviation in market or medium, to take advantage of the positives, while eliminating the direct competition.

Here is a British artist who followed after his father in the earlier part of the Golden Age of Illustration. Gordon Frederick Browne, (1858-1932) was most active in the 1880-1905, when line was still the king, and color was going through rapid changes in process and application. (Of a similar era to Walter Crane) While Browne was successful and prolific in his day, he had followed after a previous generation—his father being Hablot Knight Browne. Those who are fans of Charles Dickens' early illustrated works would be familiar with work of the elder Browne, who worked under the pseudonym of Phiz.

Always ready to explore some mythology, George Frederick Browne's Norse pieces here come from 1913's The Book of The Sagas. It is plain to see how much more comfortable he was with his line work— the loose, fluid forms, and his mastery of understanding value in ink contrast sharply with the rigid uncertainties that came with exploring early color reproduction. The younger Browne illustrated hundreds of books and worked for the British magazine's of the day, such as The Illustrated London News, Cassell's, The Pall Mall Magazine and Puck. The last of the six images is from a volume of fairy tales Browne had collected himself, which features a very unusual take on Beauty and the Beast.


Thanks to Bill O'Connor for the lend of the Saga material.

Also in the news—my upcoming Dover profile on W. Heath Robinson, and his early works has just been announced for next February. This will examine his more traditional works, before the humorous contraptions and cartoons that made up the latter part of his career became the major component of his output.

Fine Lines and Solid black, Vol. IV, A History Lesson

Bump in the road, but I'm here now.

A few things on the list, but it's been quite a while since I posted a Fine Lines, so I'm going to go there today. It's also good because a Dover book I've been waiting for (to mention here) is now available, so should you thirst for more, 'tis but a few clicks away.

Last Fall when I was putting together a syllabus for my History of Animation and Illustration class, I came to an area for required reading. All of the books I'd like to require for such a class, are out of print. I recommended a few, but I couldn't require any. But next Fall, I have one for the list.

500 Years of Illustration: From Albrecht Durer to Rockwell Kent, by Howard Simon. Originally published in 1942 (That's important, because when Simon speaks of modern work, he's talking about the late '30s and early '40's.)

A tome full of great line art and graphics, this lengthy history starts with Albrecht Durer's woodcut prints, hits William Hogarth, William Blake, and mid-nineteenth century masters, meanders through Victorian era early-illustrators, and wraps up with an international tour of some of the best line illustrators from the early 20th century. If you like your illustration art with a more graphic quality—where it's about the drawing—this is your book.

While it contains no color, the drawings and prints it contains (over 400!) and the range of the artists that it samples—make it a great add to the shelf, both as reference and for inspiration. Some of the pieces and styles to get lost in—character designs by W. Heath Robinson, up top, followed by Walter Crane designing pages for William Morris, Edmund J. Sullivan's image from
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam... the source of all of
those Grateful Dead stickers.  Harry Clarke,
fantastically creepy as always, and Franklin Booth,
getting more value out of ink line than anyone else.
Cover image is by Aubrey Beardsley.