WASTED TIME ON THE PATH TO BECOMING AN ARTIST

Before Jean Dubuffet became an artist, he served in the French army.  He was stationed high atop the Eiffel tower.  Instead of developing his art, he spent long months staring down at the winding streets and tiny buildings below.

What a waste!  Think of what he might have accomplished if he'd spent that time at art school.

Years later when Dubuffet became a world famous artist, no one could figure out where his radical new vision came from:

Before Alberto Burri ever dreamed of becoming an artist, he was drafted into the Italian Army in World War II.  He was quickly captured in Tunisia and shipped off to a POW camp in Texas.  There he spent two long years doing drudge work surrounded by burlap and canvas tents, gunny sacks, sandbags and camouflage netting. What a waste!

After the war he became world famous for his innovative art working with the textures and colors of burlap.

I can't imagine where Burri came up with such a radical idea.  Art schools certainly weren't teaching anything like that.

Illustrator Harold Von Schmidt never had the advantages of art school.  Orphaned at five, he kicked around the Old West working as a cow hand, and then on dam construction.  In this brawny world he broke his neck twice, and suffered other broken bones, dislocated shoulders and numerous bruises but he learned to understand cattle and horses as a working cowboy on trail drives.  Then one day he met the western artist Maynard Dixon who was looking for models and a studio assistant, and it changed Von Schmidt's life.

He eventually became famous for his muscular, authoritative paintings of horses and the wild west.  He painted with the forcefulness of someone who had hit the ground hard-- a forcefulness that eluded his peers who had refined their skills in art school.

Von Schmidt was esteemed by his fellow illustrators and went on to become the President of the Society of Illustrators.  Here is his portrait by James Montgomery Flagg from the Society of Illustrators' Wall of Presidents:

Returning to where we started, with Jean Dubuffet, the author Frank O'Hara wrote a  poem on the subject of Dubuffet's transition from a soldier on the Eiffel Tower to a world famous artist:

Ah Jean Dubuffet

when you think of him

doing his military service in the Eiffel Tower

as a meterologist

in 1922

you know how wonderful the 20th century

can be

Again and again, events that seem to be a delay or distraction from art training turn out to be central to an artist's achievement.  It all seems to be a matter of keeping your eyes open.

THE WALL OF PRESIDENTS AT THE SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS

Let's face it-- when you visit New York you won't always find one of John Singer Sargent's charcoal portraits on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Sometimes they're in storage.

So what's an art lover to do?

Well, you could walk a few blocks to the Society of Illustrators to see another first rate collection of charcoal portraits.  Over the 115 year history of the Society, each president has been drawn by a prominent illustrator of the day.   These remarkable drawings now line the walls for any visitor to see. Here are some that particularly struck my fancy:

Albert Sterner by William Oberhardt

Charlie Williams by James Montgomery Flagg

Charles Dana Gibson by William Oberhardt

Arthur Keller by George Brehm

Wallace Morgan by William Oberhardt

Howard Munce by Austin Briggs

Albert Beck Wenzell by Adolf Treidler 

Barye Phillips by Paul Calle

Unlike Sargent's society portraits of business moguls and dowagers who just wanted to be flattered, the portraits on the walls at the Society were pictures of working artists, done by working artists, to be displayed in front of a highly judgmental audience of working artists.  That had to change the dynamics of the art dramatically.  I'm sure each of these portrait artists wanted to show off in front of their peers.

Many of these names went on to become legends in the field of illustration.

A 1943 photo of past presidents along with the members who drew them. Note Martha Sawyers in the front row, the only woman in the room.  No African American or Asians whatsoever.

It's also interesting to note how the styles of the portraits changed over the years.  The great illustrator William Oberhardt would recoil at the thought of using a photograph for reference, but it's clear from the hard edged illustration of Paul Calle that times changed.

I'll be showing more of these drawings in future posts.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

All the best to you and yours!  

DA

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 52

Last week I showed combat art from World War I by illustrator Kerr Eby.  Back in the US, Eby illustrated books and worked for magazines such as Life and Century.

I like this tiny drawing by Eby of a town square.  The original is scarcely over 2 inches tall, but it is filled with dozens of people-- an exercise in artistic crowd control.  

The townsfolk are crowded around an automobile, which was big news in those days.  Many of the figures are little more than abstract designs of blacks and whites: 

But other figures have been given their own character, such as the unfazed old timer who has seen it all and can't find the motivation to stand up and walk over to the car:

Others are defined by their distinctive hats:

Eby's style seems like a precursor to R. Crumb and other strongly opinionated illustrators of the 60s

Another stand out: the guy who walks away:

Eby could've drawn this picture two or three times as large and given himself more room to maneuver.  Instead he chose to make a dense little jewel of a drawing.

I like the way he used line and judgment to infuse character and personality in this scene.