LEST WE FORGET

Every year on this date I think back on Bernie Fuchs, a wonderful illustrator who left us too soon.  As time passes I'm even more impressed with his accomplishments.

Like all illustrators, Fuchs received his share of perfunctory assignments.  For example, illustrating a magazine article about a golf match; how much potential is there for glamour and excitement and creativity in pictures of middle aged men standing around on a golf course?  

The answer is: plenty, if you're the right kind of artist.

Fuchs' illustrations pulled readers into the article.  They gave the text significance, and added not a small amount of magic.  

That's a big reason why people once felt illustrations made an important contribution.   Today, if I sometimes seem to fault illustrations for falling short of their potential, for being uninspired or unambitious or cheesy, it's partially because of my memories of how Bernie approached new assignments.  

I'm not suggesting that Bernie's style from 50 years ago is a suitable style today.  I'm suggesting that regardless of style, his ambition for each new picture-- the inspiration that he felt for the project, and tried to instill in readers-- were part of what once gave illustration its greatness.

KUDOS TO THE NEW YORKER

Congratulations to The New Yorker for its compassion in supporting people with disabilities.  The art direction responsibilities of the magazine are now being performed by the blind. 

Artistic selections are now being made using braille.

ADVANCE TOUR OF THE NEW LUCAS MUSEUM

 I've just staggered home from a preview of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, which is scheduled to open to the public on September 22.  Within the first 15 minutes I was already weak in the knees, and I still had an hour and 45 minutes to go.

The Lucas collection on display is astonishing.  It contains major galleries of some of the best work by Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Frank Frazetta and many others. 

Here are some of my favorites from the Parrish gallery:

This is the main Rockwell gallery, although there are many other examples of Rockwell's work scattered throughout the museum:  

The museum owns works  by Wyeth, Alphonse Mucha, Leyendecker,  and many other famous narrative artists.  

N,C. Wyeth

Alphonse Mucha

Leyendecker

Frazetta

Frazetta 

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo

Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon

George Lucas made some remarks during the tour.  He said that, throughout his career he had worked with talented artists whose work would never end up in a museum as a result of factors totally unrelated to quality.  So he resolved to build a platform worthy of the art, one that would cause people to stop and regard this art with the kind of respect that it deserved.  The result is the eye-popping, innovative, billion dollar museum soon opening in Los Angeles.

I heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in this type of art, or any type of art.

LOOSE

 

As I've written in the past, I'm a big fan of loose drawing, especially by artists who've already mastered tight, sophisticated drawing and returned to looseness on the other side.  It was true of Rodin.  It was true of Bernie Fuchs.  It was true of Austin Briggs.  And it's true of Tom Fluharty.

As Walt Whitman said, "I am for those who believe in loose delights." I found many of them in Fluharty's new book, appropriately entitled Loose.

The book contains hundreds of quick sketches of a wide variety of subjects, mostly sketchbook musings.

Even more than his drawing abilities, I'm impressed that Fluharty got close enough to draw these bikers in the Atlanta airport without getting the crap beat out of him.

I enjoy naive and primitive drawing, but there's something special about the loose, formative drawings of someone who has paid the dues to master technical drawings skills but is able to put those skills aside when a return to freedom and looseness is called for.  Knowledgeable freedom has a different look to it.

As T.S. Eliot wrote, "We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."