Lifestyle Flashcards
Al Parker
(1906 - 1985)
- A trendsetter credited with creating the “new school” of illustration. His work was often imitated to prevent this he experimented in a variety of styles, themes and media-equally adept at painterly renderings and minimal line drawings
- defined style of progressive illustration from 1940s – 60s.
- Once, in cooperation with the art director of Cosmopolitan, he secretly provided every illustration in the September 1954 issue using different pseudonyms, styles, and mediums for each story
- attended Washington University’s School of Fine Arts, afterward, he opened an ad agency that failed (due to the Depression). then moved to New York in 1935.
- His big break came when he won a national cover illustration competition for House Beautiful. began illustrating for other women’s magazines
- Best known for his many Ladies’ Home Journal covers which featured mother and daughter in matching outfits
**Interesting fact: He played several musical instruments, including the saxophone, clarinet, and drums, and played in jazz bands to pay his way through college. Music was very important to him and he continued to play throughout his life.
Al Parker
Ladies Home Journal Covers (1948)
Al Parker
Ladies Home Journal Covers (1950)
Al Parker
The American Weekly (November 1959)
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Al Parker
Austin Briggs
- Spent his early career struggling to find his own illustration style and working to improve his drawing skills
- Later, became best known for his draftsmanship and seemingly spontaneous line quality
- His work often switched between limited color line drawings and full-color gouache paintings
- He was born in Minnesota on a railway car and only attended one semester of City College of Detroit.
- He moved to New York City to continue his studies at the Art Students League while continuing to freelance.
- When the Great Depression hit, he struggled for jobs and set forth to improve his drawing skills and try to find his own voice.
- During this time, he worked as a cartoonist, starting out as an assistant to Alex Raymond on the Flash Gordon comic strip, and eventually anonymously taking over drawing the daily strip through 1944 and the Sunday strip through 1948.
- He left comics completely in 1948 to focus on book and magazine work and gradually became known for his masterful line quality and busy compositions.
- He eventually retired to Paris, where he died of leukemia at the age of 65.
Austin Briggs
Flash Gordon (mid 1940s)
Austin Briggs
Reader’s Digest Condensed Books (1956)
Austin Briggs
Reader’s Digest Condensed Books (1956)
Austin Briggs
Look Magazine (April 1957)
Austin Briggs
Austin Briggs
The Counterfeiter’s Knife, Saturday Evening Post (1961)
Lorraine Fox
- Born in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents encouraged both she and her brother to pursue art, both became illustrators. Her brother, Gill Fox, became a cartoonist and comic book artist (worked for DC comics and ghosted on The Spirit).
- She studied at the Pratt Institute, met her future husband, Bernie D’Andrea, who also became a popular illustrator.
- began freelancing for magazines and joined The Charles E. Cooper studio, one of the most influential illustration studios of the time.
- Her work is known for its simplified shapes, folk art influence, interesting composition and design quality. Her artistic style challenged the ideals of feminine beauty in commercial art, which had historically been determined by men (more simplified and stylized, less realistic and sexy).
- called her early work style “decorative design”
- Illustrated books, book covers, advertisements & continued magazine work, worked in oils, watercolors, and mixed media
- Fox went back to school part time in 1961 and studied painting for 4 years at Brooklyn Museum Art School with Reuban Tam, which shifted the look of her work to a more mature & sophisticated style.
- She taught for the Famous Artists School and at Parsons School of Art and Design (1965-75)
- described as “an elegant, quiet woman, highly imaginative, gifted in design and a standout artist in a field overbearing populated by men” by a journalist of the time.
- She died of lung cancer in 1976 and was the first Woman inducted into the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 1979, 3 years after her death.
Lorraine Fox
Unknown publication (early 1950s)
Lorraine Fox
(1953)
Lorraine Fox
Woman’s Day (March 1956)
Lorraine Fox