If you like good drawing and you're in the vicinity of New York City, it would be hard to do better than the Carter Goodrich retrospective at the Philippe Labaune Gallery. If you're not in the vicinity, the show is worth a trip.
The exhibition includes an excellent cross section of Goodrich's art, including His New Yorker covers, his magazine and book illustrations, and his character designs for major animated films. It's a rare opportunity to study his beautiful originals up close.
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| Note the vapor from the nostrils of the reindeer, the treatment of the boy's hair, the line of the tree. |
Even better from my perspective, it's a chance to view preliminary drawings and loose sketches which so often are the best way to see what an artist has.
Smart, funny, creative and beautifully crafted, Goodrich's New Yorker covers in this show remind us of a better era for the New Yorker, when its covers offered more charm, aesthetic grace and humanity.
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| A prescient baby new year for the new millennium, made all the more relevant in our year of AI |
The show also includes a number of proposals for New Yorker covers which, for some reason, were not accepted. If I were the art director of the New Yorker I'd show up at the gallery and see whether it's too late to retroactively accept proposals I'd rejected.
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| Taking the plunge |
I can't recommend this show highly enough.
The Labaune Gallery has become a gallery to watch for people with a serious interest in illustration. It has recently exhibited work by artists such as Peter de Seve, Mike Mignola, Moebius, Dave McKean and Frank Miller.
Owner Philippe Labaune has a somewhat unconventional background for the art world. He began his career in finance but had been a dedicated collector of narrative art for many years. His formative influences included Moebius and Hergé. He founded the gallery to fill what he perceived as a gap in American galleries presenting narrative art with seriousness and focus, emphasizing both its artistic significance and its narrative power. In the future, he says, the gallery wants to elevate the medium across borders.
Looks awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Goodrich is at the peak in his business but since he turned to animation character design his work has been impossible for regular fans to see. I used to collect his magazine covers for inspiration. Is there a catalog of this show?
ReplyDeleteWow! Fantastic work. Love the elementary school classroom with the little boy blushing.
ReplyDeleteThese are superb. Makes today's digital stuff look sick. Do we know what medium he used to achieve the sky in that first image?
ReplyDeleteLooks like New York has something good going for it...
ReplyDeleteWonderful work and the drawings are beautifully meaningful in their feel.
His covers connect on a human level. They tug at your heart, not like the badly drawn jokelets the New Yorker uses today.
ReplyDeleteJSL
JSL-- I think there's a nuanced point to be made about the NYer covers. Sure, times change and tastes change, and the previous famed NYer covers may not be suitable for today. The NYer's glory days of Saul Steinberg, William Steig, Thurber, Saxon, Searle, Getz and Lorenz are long gone. But for me there seems to be a diminution in the artistic ambitions of the cover, and "jokelet" is not a bad way to put the current approach. And even when the concept is strong, the visual quality often lacks skill and ambition.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years, the NYer has seemed content to fill that precious cover spot with "information graphics" (the most notorious manifestation of which is their "circle head" covers https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2014/10/an-epidemic-of-circle-heads.html ). Slightly better than information graphics are the many naively drawn in-jokes which are easy laughs for a particular subset of society but which make no broader statements about human nature.
With our senses dulled, we tend to forget that these trends represent a downturn until we are reminded of the richness that better drawing can offer and the feelings a wiser image can stir.
chris bennett-- Aw, New York isn't so bad. If you come to see the Goodrich show, there's a pretty good Raphael exhibit up the street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, I would skip MOMA's exhibit of not one but four copies of Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal. The thing about conceptual art is, once you get the concept you can stay home. The aesthetics of the object are secondary.
"but four copies of Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal. The thing about conceptual art is, once you get the concept you can stay home."
ReplyDeletePlus, once realised, the concept can be transposed to local examples at which to express your admiration
Adorable drawings. His love and appreciation for children reminds me of Drucker's.
ReplyDeletePaul Coker too, had such a gentle, wonderful way with kids.
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