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10 Illustrator Legends Masterful Techniques Today’s Illustrators Illustrator Business: How to Beginner’s Tips Illustrators of the Future
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Illustrator Legends Article by David Reedy
The
Golden Age of American Illustration, by the publication American Artist (June, 2006) explains that “In the 1880s American illustration entered a period that is generally regarded as its Golden Age. This happened because of the convergence of a number of factors: New printing techniques were being developed, paper production was becoming cheaper, railways facilitated distribution throughout the continent, and the population was expanding and becoming wealthier as industrialization progressed. National magazines such as Harper’s Monthly, Collier’s, and Scribner’s took advantage of all these circumstances to build
Golden Magazine
enormous circulations—and they needed artwork for their pages. Meanwhile, publishers of illustrated books, particularly children’s books, also found that the new techniques and new markets could make their enterprises highly profitable. Although magazines had been in business since before the Civil War, the illustrations they used had always been reproduced by hand-carving the artist’s work into woodblocks and printing it in black-and-white line. However, in the 1880s a halftone process became available that allowed for the direct reproduction of the
artist’s work in all its nuances. By 1900 full-color reproduction techniques became refined enough to allow magazines to print at least the cover in color and book publishers to print a colored frontispiece. Because photography was still in its infancy and color photography unknown, there was a huge demand for illustrators. Artists were suddenly given the chance to make enormous sums of money if they could reach the top of the profession—a fact that attracted a number of immense talents. At this time there was very little possibility for a painter to make a career through art galleries and exhibitions. If wealthy Americans bought art at all, they bought European art. Moreover, there was no stigma attached to working as an illustrator, as there often is today within the fine-arts community. In fact, artists were delighted to see their work disseminated to such a broad public.
Illustrators revealed next 2 pages 5
The Legends Revealed
Golden Magazine
Warwick Goble
Kay Nielsen
An illustrator of children’s books. He specialized in Japanese and Indian themes. In the 1890s, he contributed half-tone illustrations to monthly magazines such as Strand Magazine, Pearson’s Magazine, and The Boy’s Own Paper. In 1893, he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. In 1896, he began illustrating books. In 1898, he was the first to illustrate H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, having illustrated it for Pearson’s Magazine in 1897. He briefly continued with scientific romance themes.
A Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century. He joined the ranks of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in enjoying the success of the gift books. Known for his collaborations with Disney for whom he contributed many story sketches and illustrations.
Phoebe Anna Traquair
Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
An Irish artist who rose to prominence in Edinburgh and went on to produce a staggering volume of work. She was part of the Arts and Crafts movements in Scotland and worked in a number of disciplines including embroidery, jewellery making and metal work, painting, illustration and book design.
An Australian illustrator of children’s books. Her work mostly depicted fairies. Outhwaite’s first illustration was published by New Idea magazine in 1904 when she was just 15 years of age - it accompanied a story written by her older sister, Anne Rattray Rentoul. In the years that followed, the sisters collaborated on a number of stories.
Virginia Frances Sterrett
Frank C. Papé
Received her first commission at the age of 19 (shortly after she was diagnosed with tuberculosis) from the Penn Publishing Company to illustrate Old French Fairy Tales 1920. From 1923, in failing health, Sterrett was able to work on projects for short periods of time only and as a result, she was able to complete just one further commission prior to her death—her own interpretation of Arabian Nights 1928.
An English artist and a highly successful book illustrator. Papé’s first known work, for E. Clement’s Naughty Eric, published in 1902, remains extremely rare. Papé’s next earliest illustrations are found in books for children from around 1908, including The Odyssey and The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Edmund Dulac
John Bauer
A French-born, British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. In 1905 received his first commission to illustrate the novels of the Brontë Sisters. During World War I, Dulac produced relief books and when after the war the deluxe children’s book market shrank he turned to magazine illustrations among other ventures.
A Swedish painter and illustrator. His work is concerned with landscape and mythology, but he also composed portraits. He is best known for his illustrations of early editions of Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls), an anthology of Swedish folklore and fairy tales.
Arthur Rackham
Charles Robinson
Is widely regarded as one of the leading illustrators from the ‘Golden Age’ of British book illustration. His works have become very popular since his death, both in North America and Britain. His images have been widely used by the greeting card industry and many of his books are still in print or have been recently available in both paperback and hardback editions.
A prolific British book illustrator. He was the son of an illustrator and his brothers also became illustrators. The first full book he illustrated was Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses 1895 which includes over 100 pen and ink drawings. He illustrated many fairy tales and children’s books throughout his career.
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