Tag: illustration

Leo Maximus

Illustrations by Leo Maximus

Leo Maximus is a French graphic artist based in Paris and Montreuil, Ile-de-France. He studied graphic design and illustration in Paris. 

In his initial illustrations, Maximus used a rectangular format with strong shadowing and bold calligraphy which combined the feel of vintage advertisement with eroticism . For his current “Purgatoire” Series, Leo Maximus used a circular format  in his compositions called a tondo. This format, popular during the Renaissance, was used traditionally for religious scenes in paintings and reliefs. In this new series, Leo Maximus has softened his colors and tones to produce a more classical effect.

Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus, “Dancers Back Stage No. 1”, Date Unknown, Pastel and Charcoal on Gray Paper, 61 x 41.3 cm, Private Collection

The son of artists, illustrator Maria Latasa, of Basque and Cuban ancestry, and lithographer Egbert Cadmus, of Dutch ancestry, Paul Cadmus is widely known for his erotic and socially critical egg tempera paintings of social interactions in urban settings. His sister Fidelma Cadmus married Lincoln Kirstein, a New York impresario, philanthropist, and cofounder of the New York City Ballet. 

Throughout his career,  particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, Paul Cadmus produced many works on paper illustrating the subject of the dancer in the mediums of crayon, colored pencils, charcoal, and pastels . Most of these capture the dancer, not in the act of dance, but rather in the moment of rest, either before or after his practice and performance.

In 1965, Paul Cadmus met and began a thirty-five year relationship with former cabaret star Jon Farquhar Anderson, residing in Nantucket, Massachusetts until his death in 1999. Jon Anderson became Cadmus; muse and model for many of his works. Cadmus became close friends with many authors, artists and dancers including: novelist and playwright Christopher Isherwood, English-born poet Wystan Hugh Auden, New York City Ballet choreographer George Balanchine, photographer George Platt Lynes, painter George Tooker, and English fiction-writer and novelist Edward Morgan Forster.

Cari Vander Yacht

 

Graphic Works by Cari Vander Yacht

Born in Oregon, Cari Vander Yacht is a Brooklyn, New York-based multi-media illustrator and computer graphic artist. Besides her work for print media and corporations, she animates photos found in Portland’s thrift shops, turning them into surreal, often humorous, gifs. Originally part of a collaborative project with film artist Thomas Sauvin called “Reanimation”, Yacht has developed them into a new series called “Thank God It’s Monday Graphic Interchange Format”.

Cari Vander Yacht ’s first illustrative work was for The New York Times, a media publication to which she still occasionally contributes. Among her completed projects are; developing the branding for the Iranian soft drink Mr. Cat; animations for the Pop Up magazine; animations for Nike’s Lebron XIII shoe release; illustrations for Businessweek magazine and Brooklyn’s Parlor Coffee; an animated cover for Buzzfeed Reader; and a promotional animated graphic for Emerald Nuts.

Conan Chadbourne

Digital Mathematical Images by Conan Chadbourne

Born in 1978, Conan Chadbourne received his BA in Mathematics and Physics from New York University in 2011. He has worked in the fields of experimental physics research, digital imaging and printing, graphic design, and documentary film production.. Chadbourne lives in San Antonio where he works as a freelance graphic designer and documentary film producer.

Chadbourne  draws inspiration for his work from his experience in mathematics and the sciences. He is motivated by his fascination with the occurrence of mathematical and scientific imagery in traditional art forms, and the mystical, spiritual, or cosmological significance that is often attached to such imagery. 

Mathematical themes both overt and subtle appear in a broad range of traditional art: Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Buddhist mandalas, intricate tilings in Islamic architecture, restrained temple geometry paintings in Japan, complex patterns in African textiles, and geometric ornament in archaic Greek ceramics. Often this imagery is deeply connected with the models and abstractions these cultures use to interpret and relate to the cosmos, in much the same way that modern scientific diagrams express a scientific worldview.

Conan Chadbourn’s works have been exhibited at the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas; The Art Center of Corpus Christi,;the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, Texas; and the Bridges Conference for Mathematics in the Arts.

“There are 212,987 distinct ways to partition a 4×4 grid of square tiles into component shapes composed of contiguous tiles, assuming any two such partitions are considered equivalent if they differ only by a symmetry transformation such as a rotation or reflection. There are exactly thirteen of these configurations which partition this grid of sixteen tiles into two component shapes of equal area, each composed of eight tiles. This image presents this set of thirteen equal divisions of this group of tiles.”

—Conan Chadbourne, Discussing his image “Concise Lesson in Uniform Partitions”

Louis Eugene Larivière

Louis Eugene Larivière, “Academic Drawing of a Nude Male with Arm Raised”, 1820, Black Pencil, Charcoal, and Stump on Paper, 58.6 x 43.7 cm, Private Collection

Born in Paris in December of 1800, Louis-Eugene Larivière was the second son of the painter André Philippe Larivière, and grandson of Charles Lepeintre, Painter to the Duke of Orleans. Three years separated Eugene from his elder brother, Charles-Philippe. The sons having   demonstrated natural abilities for painting, the father placed both with French painter Anne-Louis Girodet who in turn presented them to the Special School for Fine Arts: Charles-Philippe in 1813 and Louis-Eugene in February 1816.

Following in his older brother’s footsteps, Louis-Eugène Larivière participated in the historic composition competition as Girodet’s student. Ranked thirteenth, he did not enter the second round, but was noticed and, as a painter, was exempted from military service. Unfortunately, illness prevented Larivière from competing again in 1823; and the illness finished by carrying him off prematurely in June of 1923 at the age of twenty-one years old. 

A few family portraits by Louis-Eugène Larivière survive: one full of candor of his sister Pamela-Eugenie conserved at the Louvre; a protrait of his brother Edmond Larivière, and a “Self-Portrait”, both at the Museum of Picardy in Amiens. The works come from the collection of the painter Albert Maignan, the artist’s nephew by marriage who donated them to the Amiens Museum from the contents of the Lariviere brothers’ studio. 

A few male acacemy drawings by Eugene can be found at the Amiens Museum  similar to the image above. One of them is inscribed on the verso, “Eugène Larivière. 18 août 1817”, and countersigned by his teacher, the painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin ,who corrected the student exercises of the Fine Arts students that day. Another academy drawing, dated 1818, and a few anatomical studies are know to exist in private collections. 

Salem Beiruti

Paintings by Salem Beiruti

Born in Lebanon, Salem Beiruti is a conceptual artist and illustrator residing in Madrid. Working after graduation as an art director in the fields of advertising, graphics, and fashion design, he has more than seventeen years of client and freelance work. Upon his move to Madrid, Beiruti became a full=time illustrator and artist. 

Beiruti’s skillful digital illustrations are unique and inspired by such artists and photographers as Patrick Fillion, Paul Freeman, Issauro Cairo, and Francisco Prato. His project  of mixed-media works “Morphosis” is a result of his personal journey as a man of an Arabic mid-eastern culture and its traditions to the man he is today. The art book was published in June of 2017 by German publisher Bruno Gmnuender.

For those interested in purchasing a print, Art of Salem is offering all prints at a 40% discount for Easter 2021. Please reference Ultrawolves when ordering. Thank you.   https://www.instagram.com/artistsalem/

Toussaint Dubreuil

 

Toussaint Dubreuil, “Apollo Victorious Over the Python”, Date Unknown, Black Ink and Stone Wash on Paper, Private Collection

Born in 1561 in Paris, Toussaint Dubreuil was a French painter associated with the Second School of Fontanebleau, a period of the arts during the late Renaissance that, centered on the royal palace,  became crucial in the formation of Northern Mannerism in France.

A man of noble character, Dubreuil was a master lute player, horseman, and skilled as a jouster. His works, many of which have been lost, are in the late Mannerist style, with highly elongated and undulating forms and crowded compositions. Many of Duvreuil’s themes included mythological scenes and scenes taken from fictional literature by such writers as Italian poet Torquato Tasso, the French poet Pierre de Ronsard, and the ancient Greek novelist Heliodorus of Emessa.   

In twenty years Toussanint Dubreuil had mastered all the significant innovations of the Mannerists in Italy and France. Not content with being their brilliant heir, he had achieved recognition, outshining contemporary painters Martin Fréminet and Ambroise Dubois, as the uncontested master of the Second School of Fontainebleau. Late in his brief career, Dubreuil  began working in a new, eloquently clear style which in France paved the way for the Baroque Classicism of painters Laurent de La Hyre, Simon Vouet and Nicolas Poussin. 

First painter to King Henry IV, Toussaint Dubreuil, after a short career, passed away on November 22, 1602, leaving behind him the image of a painter being exceptionally intelligent and notably skilled in drawing and the nude.

Walter Crane

Walter Crane, “Pegasus”, 1889, Pencil, Watercolor, and Bodycolor with Gum Arabic on Paper Laid on Linen, 71 x 71 cm, Private Collection

Born in Liverpool, England in August of 1845, Walter Crane was an English illustrator, painter, and designer primarily known for his illustrations of children’s books. Son of portrait painter Thomas Crane, he served as an apprentice to wood engraver W. J. Linton in London where he was able to study the works of the contemporary painters Dante Rossetti and John Millais, as well as  the Italian masters. Crane’s most important technical development was derived from his study of Japanese color wood-prints: he used these techniques in his 1869 to 1875 series of toy books.

Crane’s early paintings showed the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly John Ruskin’s works, and can be seen in Crane’s 1862 painting “The Lady of Shalott”, produced as an illustration for poet Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ballad of the same name. In 1864, Crane began to illustrate a series of sixpenny books of nursery rhymes for the color printer Edmund Evans. A more elaborate series, with influences from both the Japanese prints and early-Florentine painting, was begun in 1873 with the book “The Frog Prince”.

A strong instructive, moral element underlies much of Walter Crane’s work. For several years, he contributed weekly cartoons to the politically socialist periodicals “The Commonweal” and “Justice”. These cartoons were later published in a  collection entitled “Cartoons for the Cause” as a souvenir for the 1896 International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress in London. Between 1893 and 1899, Crane was art director of the Manchester School of Art, and then of Reading College, and finally was principal fo the Royal College of Art in Kensington, London for two years. 

Walter Crane worked with English designer and craftsman William Morris in 1894 on the page decorations of “The Story of the Glittering Plain”, printed in the style of sixteenth-century Italian and German woodcuts. Considered to be the best of Crane’s book illustrations are those in poet Edmund Spenser’s works, the 1895-97 “Faerie Queene” and “The Shepheardes Calendar”, published in 1897, both known for their design and vivid detail. He also illustrated the “Mrs Molesworth” collection of children’s novels, the 1873 edition of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, Oscar Wilde’s 1888 “The Happy Prince and Other Stories”, and British schoolteacher Nellie Dale’s instructive primer series “Teaching English Reading”, published between 1898 and 1907.

Walter Crane’s life ended on a tragic note. His wife of forty-four years, Mary Francis Crane, was found dead on the railroad tracks near Ashford Kent, England, ruled apparently a self-inflicted death due to temporary insanity. Heart broken, Walter Crane died three months later on March 14, 1915, in Horsham, Sussex, leaving behind three children. 

Top Insert Image: Frederick Hollyer, “Walter Crane”, Detail, Date Unknown, Platinum Print, 14.5 x 10.3 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Bottom Insert Image: Walter Crane, “Britomart”, 1900, Watercolor on Paper, Library of Decorative Arts, Paris

Image reblogged with many thanks to: https://hadrian6.tumblr.com

Walter Martin Baumhofer

Walter Baumhofer, Cover Art for “Doc Savage” Magazines

Born in November of 1904 to German immigrant parents, Walter Martin Baumhofer grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He went on a scholarship to Pratt Institute, studying under illustrator and muralist Dean Cornwell and painter Harold Winfield Scott. In 1925, Baumhofer began drawing interior illustrative work for “Adventure”magazine’s stories. Upon Harold Scott’s suggestion, he started to submit cover paintings to the pulp magazines. 

Baumhofer’s first pulp cover appeared on Clayton Publication’s ”Danger Trail” in 1926. His masterful cover paintings from the golden era of “Dime Detective”, “Dime Mystery”, “Dime Western”, “Pete Rice”, “Doc Savage”, and “The Spider” were among the most iconic images in pulp art history. The design and execution of Baumhofer’s work combined an impressive combination of sensational brushwork with a theatrical flair for composing striking scenes of intriguing villains, rugged heroes, and steadfast women. Some five hundred and fifty pulp covers grace his resume.

After joining the American Artists agency in 1937, Baumhofer made the transition to slick glossy magazines, initially starting at “Liberty”, a weekly general-interest magazine. With his successful work there, he added to his resume “Collier’s”, “Cosmopolitan”, “Redbook”, “Esquire”, “The American Weekly”, and “Woman’s Day”. In the 1950s, Baumhofer worked for men’s rugged adventure magazines, such as “Argosy”, “Outdoor Life”, “True”, and “Sports Afield”, producing vivid calendar pieces as well as cover and interior work..

Retiring from freelance magazine illustration, Baumhofer created landscapes, portraits, and Western scenes for fine art galleries. Due to the rise of television and the decline of pulps and reader’s magazines in the late 1950s to the early 1960s, his illustrations were not in demand. Very little illustrative work by Baumhofer was done in the 1960s and the 1970s. 

Walter Martin Baumhofer passed away on September 23, 1987 at the age of eighty-two. In the world of pulp magazine aficionados, he is renowned for his paintings, innovative design work, and his high standards.

Note: Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, a physician, scientist, adventurer, detective, and punisher of evil-doers. He first appeared in “Doc Savage”, Magazine #1, in March of 1933, with the series ending in the summer of 1949. In all, a total of 181 issues were published in various entries and alternative titles. Stories were written by Lester Dent and the magazine was published by Henry Ralston and John Nanovic of Street and Smith Publications. It was Walter Baumhofer who created the visual image of Doctor Clark Savage, Junior. Editor Stan Lee of Marvel Comics credited Doc Savage as being the forerunner to modern superheroes.

Nick Robles

Illustrations by Nick Robles: Set Two

Nick Robles is a self-taught freelance graphic artist from southern Louisiana. His main medium is digital art; however, he has also created artwork in the fields of sculpture and oil painting. Robles acknowledges many and varied influences on his artwork, from illustrators J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell to comic artist Mike Mignola and Pre-Raphaelite artist J. W. Waterhouse.

In 2014 Nick Robles started working with BOOM! Studios producing illustrations and cover art for their publications, including the 2014 “Clockwork Angels”, the covers of “Kong of Skull Island”, and work on the 2015 “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials”. He worked with ECW Press, a Toronto-based independent book publisher, in 2015 on Kevin Anderson’s graphic novel “Clockwork Lives”. Robles also did artwork for both Black Crown Publishing and Dark Horse Comics. He is currently working with both Necromancer Press and Vault Comics.

Nick Robles is the co-creator along with author Tini Howard of Black Crown Publishing’s new graphic series “Euthanauts”, a sci-fi graphic adventure into the frontier of death. Robles created memorable characters with crisp details using a palette of warm and cool colors to indicate the living and the dead. His art on this series presents an atmosphere that is both modern and dark, with experiments in panel layouts and the design of the page. There are currently five issues in the series availabe from Black Crown Publishing.

Eric Henri Kennington

Eric Henri Kennington, “Portrait of Leading Seaman Dove of HMS Hardy”, 1940, Pastel on Paper, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Born in Chelsea, London, in 1888, Eric Henri Kennington was an English illustrator sculptor, and an official war artist in both World Wars. He was educated at St. Paul’s School and the Lambeth School of Art, both in London. In 1908, Kennington had his first exhibition at the Royal Academy and, in 1914, an exhibition at the international Society, which financially allowed him to set up a studio in London. 

Wounded in 1915 during World War I, Kennington spent time, during his convalescence,  painting his “The Kenningtons at Laventie”, a portrait of his own infantry platoon, which caused a sensation at its 1916 showing. In May of 1917, he accepted an official war artist commission from the Department of Information, spending eight months in France. During this tour, Kennington produced 170 charcoal, pastels, and watercolors of servicemen and the war action before returning to London in 1918.

During the years between the two wars,, Kennington worked mostly on portraits of an idealized style;  book illustrations, notably those for T. E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”; and a number of public sculptures and monuments. His 1924 War Memorial to the 24th Division located in Battersea Park and his 1928 Memorial to the Allied Forces located in Soissons, France, established his position as a direct carver working on a monumental scale. In September of 1931, Kennington finished a series of allegorical reliefs for the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in Stratford on Avon. A life-sized tomb effigy of British archeologist and writer T. E. Lawrence was carved, between 1937 and 1939, by Kennington for St. Martin’s Church in Wareham, Dorset. 

In 1951 Kennington became an associate member of the Royal Academy and was elected a full academician in 1959. He passed away on April 13, 1960 at the age of seventy-two. His last work, which was completed on his death by his assistant Eric Stanford, was a stone relief panel that decorates the James Watt South Building in the University of Glasqow.

Note: Kennington drew his pastel portrait of Leading Seaman Dove, along with other seamen, in 1940. The badge worn by Seaman Dove indicates that he was a gunnery specialist. Dove served on the HMS Hardy, a H-class destroyer, launched in 1943, which was later capsized from an assault by German destroyers, finally sinking off Narvik, Norway, in April of 1940. 

Top Insert Image: Howard Coster, “Eric Kennington”, 1936, Half Plate Film Negative Print, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Bottom Insert Image: Eric Henri Kennington, “Sleeping Figure”, Date Unknown, Charcoal on Paper, 24.2 x 34.3 cm, Private Collection

Richard Rosenfeld

Richard Rosenfeld, Untitled, 1982, Color Pencil on Paper, 46 x 61 cm.

A veteran of the fashion education industry, Richard Rosenfeld has taught fashion model-drawing classes at Manhattan’s Parsons School of Design since 1978 and at the Fashion Institute of Technology since 1989. He has taught numerous famous designers, including Chris Benz, Isaac Mizrahi and Jason Wu, as well as New York illustrator Steven Broadway, who is currently teaching at the University of Fashion in New York.

Rosenfeld attended Providence’s Rhode Island School of Design and graduated from Parsons School of Design with a degree in Illustration. He has worked as a fashion illustrator for high profile publications such as Vogue, WWD, Glamour, The New York Times, and for various department stores and other fashion design clientele.

Richard Rosenfeld’s philosophy for teaching fashion drawing focuses on developing good observational skills, the accurate depiction of textiles and various types of garments in silhouette, all with a personal point of view. His preferred medium of choice is a combination of pencil & watercolors.

Rosenfeld continued his passion for drawing from live models during the Covid-19 pandemic via ZOOM. He currently mentors young design professionals.

Insert Image: Richard Rosenfeld, “New Kid in Town”, Date Unknown, Sketch with Mixed Media on Paper

Felix d’Eon

Illustrations by Felix d’Eon

Guadalajara-born artist Felix d’Eon is influenced by multiple historical art styles, including vintage American comics, Edwardian fashion, illustrations from children’s books, and the prints of Edo period Japan. Doing careful research in costumes, settings, and the style of a period, he gives his work, done on antique paper, the illusion of antiquity, D’Eon’s thoroughness and accuracy allows his illustration to appear taken from the pages of an art history textbook. 

D’Eon uses the vintage illustrative style, with its delicate romance and aesthetics, as a tool for narratives of both marginalized and historically oppressed gay communities. He employs this technique in his illustrations, both erotic and provocative, to challenge the modern-day stigmas, still present, around same-sex relationships. 

Ultimately, D’Eon’s illustrations read as an alternative history for the queer people he draws. None of his characters suffer from tragic endings or acts of injustice like they perhaps might have in the past or even present day. Instead, D’Eon recreates the world not as it was or is, but imagines the world as it can be. 

Felix d’Eon has produced a series of tarot card illustrations and is currently working on a series of astrological signs painted with queer subjects. Many of his illustrations can be found for purchase at the artist’s site at Society6:  https://society6.com/felixdeon

André Castiagne

André Castaigne, “The Killing of Cleitus by Alexander”, 1898-1899, Engraving, The Century Magazine

Jean Alexandre Michel André was a French artist, engraver and book illustrator. He became an important artist in the Golden Age of Illustration in the United States, producing paintings and literary illustrations in both France and America. As a youth, Castaigne read prodigiously and studied classic Greek, Latin, French, and German literature. At the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Léon Gérôme, he trained to become a painter in the Salon tradition. 

Castaigne’s interest in visually interpreting history led him to become an illustrator as well as a portrait painter. His first of many illustrations appeared in “The Century” magazine around 1891, followed by over 160 illustrations before the end of 1895. Castaigne created more than thirty-six engravings about Alexander the Great for the 1898 to 1899 twelve-part series of “The Century” magazine. 

André Castaigne’s engraving entitled “The Killing of Cleitus” shows the killing of Cleitus the Black, an officer of the Macedonian army led by Alexander the Great. At the Battle of the Granicus in 334 BC, Cleitus saved Alexander, who was under attack by the Persian commander Spithridates, by severing Spithridates’ hammer arm before he could strike the fatal blow. On the eve of the day he was to take possession of the Macedonian government, Alexander organized a banquet in the palace at Samarkand. During the drunken banquet, Cleitus, hearing he was to be posted in the steppes of Central Asia, uttered many grievances against Alexander and his royal legitimacy. This led to Alexander in anger throwing a javelin through Cleitus’ heart. In all four known texts of this story, it is shown that Alexander grieved for the death of Cleitus.