Long before television, let alone the Internet, illustrators dominated the graphic landscape. These were the artists who from the turn-of-the-century through the 1930s plumped novelists’ prose, spurred American consumerism and strengthened a homespun Americanness. While a few of these artists are familiar, including Norman Rockwell, who created 321 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, and painter and illustrator Maxfield Parrish, known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery, many have been forgotten despite having achieved great success in their careers. Now readers can learn more about the golden era of illustration from the current exhibition, ‘Illustrating Modern Life: The Golden Age of American Illustration from the Kelly Collection,’ on view through March 31 at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine. Often overlooked by serious art history books, illustrators were looked down upon, says Museum Director Michael Zakian, whose own academic focus is Abstract Expressionism. Nevertheless, when Zakian first saw the show at the Dahesh Museum in Manhattan in 2006, he was ‘blown away, impressed by the powerful imagery and depth and quality of the work. I thought it would be a good fit for our museum, which espouses more traditional values.’ With a collection of over 400 pieces featuring illustrators from 1880 through 1930 ensconced in his home in Virginia, Richard Kelly has become the undisputed expert on the era. He not only agreed to the Pepperdine exhibit, but also liked the tie-in with the university’s 75th anniversary. ’The school was founded in 1937, which dovetails with the zenith of the American illustrator tradition,’ Zakian says. Several developments coalesced at the turn of the 20th century that encouraged the demand for illustrations. One of the biggest advances that became popular in journals during the early 1890s was the invention of the halftone, a continuous tone imagery containing an infinite range of colors or grays, which allowed for the reproduction of paintings. The early 20th-century magazines created a huge market for serialized American fiction while advances in bulk mail postal discounts made the cost affordable. With this development, there was a parallel rise in advertising, and the competition among magazines upped the ante for eye-catching covers. ‘Which magazine is the customer going to buy and take home?’ Zakian asks. Magazine sales soared, translating into lucrative careers for artists. Charles Dana Gibson, who gained national fame for his ‘Gibson Girl,’ an idealized representation of the best qualities of American life, made $100,000 for his work with Collier’s. Zakian conjectures that part of fine artists’ disdain of illustrators was jealousy. ‘The logic was that illustrators were commissioned by editors to illustrate a particular story and were paid handsomely. Artists, on the other hand, created images out of their own imagination [and failed to earn anything close to that money].’ Zakian argues that it was the competition among journals and demand from the American public that prompted illustrators to be innovative and introduce bold new approaches to picture-making. Joseph Christian Leyendecker, one of the pre-eminent American illustrators of the 1900s, ‘virtually invented the whole idea of modern magazine design.’ For The Saturday Evening Post alone, he produced 322 covers, as well as many advertising illustrations for its interior pages. No other artist, until the arrival of Norman Rockwell two decades later, was so solidly identified with one publication. ‘In fact, Rockwell was an avid follower of Leyendecker, even moved to New Rochelle, where the older man lived,’ Zakian says. ‘But Rockwell made sure that he did not create more covers than Leyendecker.’ Leyendecker developed techniques with images that practically jumped off the page, Zakian says. In ‘First Airplane Ride,’ he sets the airplane off-center and purposely cuts off part of the wings at the edge of the page. ‘His highly innovative composition has the effect of making the airplane seem to extend far beyond the cover’s physical border,’ Zakian writes in the exhibit’s catalogue. Another artist who conquered the confines of page size was Coles Phillips, who developed a technique where parts of the figure blended with the background. His work quickly became popular with Life readers and in May 1908, he created a cover for the magazine that featured his first ‘Fade-Away Girl’ design with a figure whose clothing matched, and disappeared into, the background. Adventure in design and technique was one thing, but the illustrators of the golden age were also engaged in bringing fiction and history to life. Howard Pyle was considered the father of American illustration for the popularity of his work and for his influence as a teacher. He and his followers, including N.C. Wyeth (patriarch of the Wyeth family artists), Frank Schoonover, Harvey Dunn, and more, fueled the craze for adventure stories. Pyle played a crucial role in establishing the era’s vogue for historical adventure stories, notably the 1883 classic ‘The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.’ ‘He wrote ‘Robin Hood’ by pulling together disparate stories into the coherent story we know today,’ Zakian says. ‘He created characters like Friar Tuck and Little John. ’Pyle was also concerned about historical accuracy; all the details must be correct. He sought out vintage objects and amassed a sizable collection of props for his paintings.’ His preferred subjects included the Revolutionary War, the Middle Ages and pirates. Wyeth, though originally from Massachusetts, moved to Philadelphia to study at Pyle’s Drexel Institute and later at his own school of art in Wilmington. ’All of Pyle’s students were under his influence,’ Zakian says. ‘This included a dramatic edge and an emphasis on historic themes. Stories tended to be muscular, emphasizing physical energy, human conflict, battling the elements.’ His ‘Bruce on the Beach’ from ‘The Scottish Chiefs’ was the basis of the 1995 film ‘Braveheart.’ Print advertisements came alive at this time. Leyendecker was hired to produce an ad for the suit company Kuppenheimer. His Arrow Collar Man, ‘the kind of man who would get proposals from women, came to define the fashionable male during the early decades of the 20th century,’ Zakian says. Leyendecker also created a series of 20 ‘Kellogg’s Kids’ to promote Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. With the passage of time and ad agencies tending to put their best and brightest people on digital platforms, Larry Kramer, publisher of USA Today, said he worries ‘the skill set is atrophying’ and decided to do something to reinvigorate the medium by offering a $1 million worth of full-page ad space to the winner of the USA Today Print Advertising Competition. In announcing the winner, Google Creative Lab, Kramer said he was reassured of the vibrancy of print illustrations. ‘The creators of the ad understood the palette that print offers to marketers and took advantage of the medium’s strengths.’ Just as artists in the Golden Age of American Illustration developed new ways of thinking about the function and purpose of their art, so today’s innovative artists are creating powerfully graphic imagery that captures the attention of the viewer.
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