Notes & Major Points

Towards Illustration Theory: Robert Weaver, Harold Rosenberg, and the Action Illustrator? Jaleen Grove

Published in Art Criticism volume 24

Jaleen Grove Essays: https://jaleengrove.com/words_pprs1.html

Grove, Jaleen. “Towards Illustration Theory: Robert Weaver, Harold Rosenberg, and the Action Illustrator?” Art Criticism, Donald Kuspit, editor, vol. 24, no. 1, 2009, pp. 69-84.

Towards Illustration Theory: Harold Rosenberg, Robert Weaver, and the ''Action Illustrator"? .

Jaleen Grove

Ii is quite contrived to match Harold Rosenberg's art criticism with the work of illustrator Robe1t Weaver, whom Rosenberg never mentioned and perhaps never even knew of. Yet doing so affords two opportunities: to cri­ tique Rosenberg's art criticism, and to bring illustration scholarship into the arena of ait criticism on its own terms, rather than allowing it to exist merely as a punching bag for fine art's vanity. The forced companionship may well turn out to be a failure, but in failing, at least the question of whether the criticism of a major theorist of the "high" arts can or ought to be useful in understanding the "low" will be paitly answered. Perhaps this attempt may find meaningful insights and new strategies for interpreting the creative practices of both crit­ ics and illustrators. Revisit1ng and appropriating the thought of critics such as Rosenberg is an attempt to redress a critical neglect of illustration in the past. It also tests the current bel ief that the split between high and low art has col­ lapsed - a conclusion that has been perhaps prematurely reached, since de-: spite Robert Weaver's work being hailed in the 1950,'s as the synthesis of fine art and illustration, 1 illustrators are still credited differently in publications2

and excluded from exhibitions, and they continue to express concern over their artistic status. 3 If such a dialectic presupposes that .some basic premises are held in common, then there ought to be an affinity hidden within the writ­ ings of the old adamantly "elitist" critics that can be brought to bear usefully on commercial art practices; one that can be exhumed through a critical reap­ praisal of their thought from an illustrator's perspective. This paper returns to the .year of 1959 to posthumously initiate a scholarly debate on whether illus­ tration could be "legitimate" ait; a debate that at that time had excluded illus­ trators' viewpoints.

Rosenberg and Weaver were not such strange bedfellows as the fore­ going implies. Harold Rosenberg popularized the term "action painting," and furthered the careers of Abstract Expressionists, and Robert Weaver was cred­ ited with using Abstract Expressionism to revitalize the illustration industry, moving illustration from academicism to conceptualism.4 Both men were de­ te1mined to be misfits (and were)within their respective fields, yet they held some beliefs in common: "genuine" art was a special entity, creativity should

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be individualistic, the creator ought to be of his times, and a1tists had a moral duty to challenge the status quo.5 They both deplored what Weaver referred to as "artistic Stalinism:"6 institutional determinism largely associated with the formalist doctrines promoted by Rosenberg's nemesis Clement Greenberg. Their primary difference is that Weaver stated, "I see no reason why an illustrator should not think ofhimselfas a serious contemporary painter,"7 while Rosenberg asserted, "That genuine art can be created to order in modern times has never been demonstrated. "8 Robert Weaver 's illustrations for Sports Illustrated, Life, Fortune, and other mass publications challenge the belief that creativity in mass culture could not be considered mt according to Rosenberg's own pa­ rameters in the 1950's. This paper uses Weaver's series of illustrations for an 1959 Esquire mtic.le on John F. Kennedy as a case study to examine whether such work can be considered art. 9

'

Weaver is remembered as "the godfather of the new illustration" be­ cause of bis avant garde innovations. 10 According to Rosenberg, "an indispensible ingredient" of the avant garde "is social dissent. ... The aim of vanguard art is to build a new kind of life in an epoch in which fonns have collapsed or turned into purposeless restrictions." 11 The fonn that illustration was seen to have exhausted, and that Weaver challenged, was the academic realism associated with Westpo1t illustrators in -the vein ofNorman Rockwell and Al Parker. As for social dissent, in 1965 be said he "would like to bring the artist's eye to bear upon more dangerous and volatile aspects of our time."12

He sarcastically observed in 1959, "A true avant-garde might today proclaim the return of subject matter!" 13

Regarding the question of subject matter, Rosenberg 's definition of an action painter seemed diametrically opposed to Weaver's definition of an illustrator. While Weaver said, "The illustrator may use the ideas of the con­ temporary painter; but it is communication that is his ultimate goal," 14 Rosenberg denied action painters any goals whatsoever:

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter atler another as an arena in which lo act - rather than a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze, or "express" an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. 15

This method consisted of the mtist engaging with the canvas with no subject in mind, each new mark based on inspiration derived from the last, thereby pro­ voking self-knowledge in the artist (or writer-critic); a process that was for Rosenberg a superior state:

The materials I use - words, paint, gesture - become the means for ... unveiling the unexpected. It is for thi s reason that a work of art

Art Criticism

that carries out an idea conceived by someone else - as in com­ mercial art, or art made under the intellectual prodding of dealers, critics, or cultural managers - is bound to be interior to art brought into being through a continuous passage between the mind and the hand of a free individual. 16

Rosenberg's reasoning assumed that illustrators always know what they are doi ng ahead 6f execution, that conditions for surprises do not exist in their methods, that they are always art directed, that direction, goals, and desiderata 11ecessarily hamper freedom, and that self-knowledge cannot be achieved in commercial work, Robert Weaver, on the ?ther hand, was skeptical of action painting, caustically remarking in 1959:

Today's artist finds himself unattached to society. There is no mu­ tual responsibility. He is 'free'. He likes it that way. Is it not this very freedom that has vitiated and robbed art of its raison d'etre? I have noticed that abstract expressionism carried to the most reck­ less extremes no longer has the power to shock and disturb even the most conservative of audiences. Ennui sets in .... 'Self expres­ sion' is not a purpose, it is an inevitable by-product of [an extrin­ sic] purpose. It is at this point that the illustrator-painter should realize his opportunities. 17•

Weaver had reason to question assumptions like Rosenberg's because Weaver's assignments from publishers were very loosely defined. Weaver was dispatched to cover a topic-delinquent youth, baseball players, industrial labour, Kennedy's presidential campaign-in any way he chose, as a journalist was. He recalled , " I was known for the kind of work I did. I rarely had to defend it or argue for it. They came to me, and they knew what they were going to get." 18

Visiting actual sites, speaking to real people, sketching on the spot, he devel­ oped visual essays as he discovered the subject, not beforehand. Recalling his first cover job for Fortune magazine, be said,

[Art director Leo] Lionni trusted the artist, and once he picked the right practitioner, he let him alone .... What I did [for the cover] was go to the library and look up all the preceding Fortune covers under his direction. I made up my mind there was a certain kind of cover that he wanted, which I then proceeded to' copy .... which he quickly rejected, saying, "No, no, no, no, do it your way." He looked at my sketchbook and picked out a most unexpected draw­ ing for a cover. I told him it didn't look like a Fortune cover, and he said, '"I don't want it to look like a Fortune cover."19

The way magazines hoped to benefit from letting artists go wild is conveyed in

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an advertisement Esquire ran in 1956. Some of Weaver's work was repro duced with copy that read,

Between art and illustration lies the very fine line Robert Weaver captures on canvas today. His work is a startling translation of the literal. ... It's a first and an imaginative one - and that's why you're bound to find it first in Esquire. For Esquire is good coun­ try for explorers like you ... You were the first to step out in the "chukka" boot . .. first with a portable TV. .. And you ' ll always find firsts like these in Esquire . .. Because Esquire is a showcase for tomorrow's mood. 20

It is gag-inducing copy like this that set Rosenberg's teeth on edge. But com­ mercial appropriation of "translation" and " imagination" does not negate the fact that those very qualities could have genuinely existed for the illustrator as he made the work, and that they can be reinstated simply by removing the images from the text with a pair of scissors, mental or rel;\!.

The crux of Rosenberg's and Weaver's conflict was whether creativ­ ity could thrive best within or outside of mainstream culture. Although in 1948 he protested against the idea of the romantically "alienated" artist, Rosenberg still felt the artist was some distance away from the everyday by virtue of his not being a reified worker.2 1 His poor opinion of popular art was strongly mani­ fested in his 1957 essay "Pop Culture: Kitsch Criticism."22 Here, he wanted to suppress all critical scholarship on "kitsch" (which included illustration), ex­ cept that which denounced it as propaganda in order to "change the landscape."21

He worried that studying it ennobled it above its station, imbued it with mean­ ingfulness that he felt was not genuine, and worst of all, that it took precious intellectual attention away from "real" mt. There was, however, the annoying fact that fine art and mass art often borrowed from each other. Rosenberg complained that "kitsch" obligated art to retreat to ever more rarified pastures, for if"kitsch" came to resemble art (as Weaver was promoting), then art would become just "a commodity among commodities, kitsch."24 Accusing mass art of"looting" fine mt, he jealously defended his pet artists ' (Willem De Kooning and Stuart Davis) use of "billboard type and lips that sell rouge" as "a vac­ cine," to critically point out how "life and kitsch have become inseparable.ms But this chicken-and-egg debate of who-dunnit-first only showed how divid­ ing culture i'nto high and low was ultiinately futile. Faced with this obvious conclusion but detennined to kee'p art and mass culture apart nonetheless, Rosenberg then awkwardly denied that art was the "counterconcept" of popu­ lar culture:

But if it [art] sharply distinguishes itself . . . it becomes a distur­ bance, a risk . . . Dissociated from the experience of millions ...

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the best art of our times restricts its appeal to other artists .. . there is no audience for contemporary art and no luxury for artists. Both attention and cash go to kitsch . . .. 16

B , distancing itself, art was supposed to maintain a non-commercial purity y • ~ • 1· h tt , d to avoid collapse with "kitsch," but m practice t us t eory was an u er

an • d. • h" h failure. Distance reinscribed the dialectic rather than transcen mg 1t, w 1c ironically led to its collapse again; the more rarified it became, the more cash value such art was awarded. By 1969 Rosenberg would_ be forc.ed _to acknowl­ edge that, "Action painting does not escap~ the l~w of ~he. fet1sh1sm of_com- modities .... as in all art.there i~ inherently mAct1on pamtmg a temptation to chicanerv . . . once Action painting had left the seclusion of the studio the old art gam~ was going on as usual."27 Worse, he wanted "genuine" art to _have some political resonance (rather than an overt stance) b_ut, as he later adm~t~ed, dissociated art risk~d being inscrutable and therefore meffectual for poht1cal radicalism,28 In fact, art reduced to an artistic statement of"no comment'' could have any agenda imposed upon it. This was the fate of"depoliticized" abstract expressionist works, which as Frances Stonor Saunde~s shows, were embrace? by the Cl A-friendly Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Muse:1m of Am~n­ can Art and paraded internationally from 1946 through the 1950 s, promotmg American-cultural and economic hegemony abroad.29 Nevertheless, Rosenberg clung to the ideal of dissociation throughout his career, eventually claimi~g the artist should be distanced as "a primitive, a naYf', so his mt could "set m motion previously uncontrolled, or even undiscovered, powers o_f the mind:"'

0

Finding the socially disconnected artist and art to be mappropnate vehicles for meaningful engagement with life, Weaver proposed he "~ould like to show how 'art' and illustration could serve each other." He contmued,

How can there be vitality without meaning? A much more intellec­ tually challenging field of painting is that which includes illus~ra:­ tion but is not limited by it. Illustration is essential to great pamt­ ing. Abstraction cannot be equated with it; it is merely the gram­ mar [original emphasis].31

Weaver was entirely in agreement with Rosenberg that the artist should never be a mere "reflector." Instead, "in an atomic era he should be a reactor." And just as Rosenberg proposed the mtist should dissoci~te, ~o too did ~ea~~~ demand the illustrator "be outside momentary surface 11lus10ns, observmg. -­ Yet how could the aloof observer artist also be a nuclear reactor? Weaver advocated that the observer be completely immersed in the assignment, and like Rosenberg, he advocated that the artist define his creativity- his

artistness- on his own tenns: 33

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Since I am an amateur illustrator as well as a professional one, I commissioned myself to cover 'Our Town ' [a theatre production]. . . . One of the first problems in this kind of assignment is to be­ come an accepted, unobtrusive presence. I had to be close to what was going on but nqt a distraction for the cast. I was able to ac­ complish this by showing up regularly at rehearsals and sitting around for long hours. The illustrator, too, needs this familiariza­ tion. Thus, in a rela,"Xed way, he can draw exactly what he wants to draw. 34

"Familiarization," not withdrawal, was the way to artistic empowerment. He continued to emphasize drawing from life as research, making his students at the School of Visual Arts draw in public while saying, "Once the initial shock of life wears off the student can begin to discover the magnitude of the world."35

The illustrator was a paiticipant observer, and Weaver called his sketchbook pages "informational notes," not art. 36 Rosenberg wrote, "The mass-culture maker, who takes his experience of others, is essentially a reflector of myths, and lacks concrete experiences to communicate."37 Cha:llf:nging this totalizing proclamation, Weaver said of his journalistic approach,

It was not the kind of mythologizing illustration that you saw in Cosmopolitan. Theirs was not attached to the real world, and that's why I liked the journalistic side of it. ... I did do some Cosmo­ politcm work, a lot of detective stories, which I enjoy doing, but even that kind of fictional illustration grew out of the real. I used real data . . .. I based my Cosmo work on a lot of sketches of real situations . . .. in the interest of credibility.38

ln observing real situations, Weaver synthesized a distinction Rosenberg made between "fonnulated common experiences which are the substance of mass culture and the common situations in which hwnan beings find themselves," the latter of which was "the genuine work of art" [originalemphasis].39

Rosenberg protested against the concept of the artist becoming the "medium of a common experience," and instead claimed, "For individual experience it is necessary to begin with the individual." In agreement with him in principle, but differing on the score of medium, Weaver stated, "I don't like symbolism. lt's very hard to feel emotional about a symbol [in posters] .... I'm using real and appropriate symbols. The poster 1 worked from is my poster. That's my umbrella. The symbols are-appropriate because they effectively represent my life."40 However, both men's claims were contradicted somewhat by the fact that Weaver loved flags, even i{he appreciated their symbolism ironically: in a self-portrait his eccentric jacket is made of the American stars and stripes.41

ln fact, common symbols do not close meaning. Rather, they are points of familiarity people customize and use in defining their identities as simulta-

Art Criticism

neously similar and different. The more mass identity is imposed, the more it invites subversion .

Rosenberg's condemnation of kitsch revolved around its supposed adherence to rules:

Mass art is the product of creative talent put into the service of a) art that has established rules b) art that has a predictable audience, predictable efforts, predict­ able rewards Kitsch is art that follows established rules .... Kitsch is thus art produced in obedience to the basic assumptions of the Art of the Ages: the assumption that tracjitional fonns can be put to new uses through technical means; the assumption that these fonns retain an intrinsic power to move people. Both these assumptions are correct.42

It is essentially true that avant garde illustration did use new technical means to reiterate traditional fo1ms in order to profit from their ensuing novelty, the very tactic that Rosenberg feared could become propaganda. Weaver did not deny that this possibility existed. He accused illustrators of being unthinking:

That [the illustrator] has not realized [his artistic opportunities] is borne out by the low opinion in which the illustrator is held in. the general 'art world. Many illustrators of today are too little con­ cerned with the actualities of their time. Too often they merely aid and abet the pre-sold illusion of the age. The illustrator who should be outside momentary surface illusions observing, is himself ob­ served as part of the phenomenon by more serious students of the time.43

Weaver's belief that most illustration contributed to "illusion" agreed with Rosenberg's opinion, but Weaver differed from Rosenberg in that he felt the problem could be addressed in commissioned work. Although Rosenberg even­ tually saw that abstract expressionism found its logical outcome in ennui ,44 the idea that artists should be "responsible" frightened him. "I should only like to make sure nobody is bullied by the abstract concept of social responsibility into becoming useless to himself and to his fellow men, or even becoming a menace," he said, referring to the producers of mass culture who while at­ tempting to work for the greater good may become totalitarian instead.45 Illus­ tration, however, with its "power to move people" and to "be put to new uses through technicat means," deserves credit that it might also be used to posi­ tively change the landscape, both in its own right and as the cattle-driver of fine art;46 it is not a foregon4 conclusion that totalitarianism results from de­ sign for mass culture. Weaver, like Rosenberg, pointed out that a "cigarette ad

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[or] Soviet social realism .. . don't really communicate."47 Unlike Rosenberg, he felt illustration did not necessarily equate to propaganda.

Rosenberg would have called Weaver an "Orgman," one who buys into the system he works for. 48 In contrast to the Orgman, the intellectual, like the artist, "defines himself as an intellectual .. . by the sole fact of his inner dissociation from the organizational universe" [ original emphasis).49 True in­ tellectuals were never contained by their job descriptions, were characterized by philosophical lone wolfism, and could be found in any walk of Ii fe ,5° except apparently as "mass culture makers," whom Rosenberg characterized as a face­ less, monolithic lot. In this, he was being hypocritical , since he himself was paradoxically implicated as an Orgrnan and mass culture producer by his thirty­ year career as a radio script-writer and poster campaign planner, then Project Consultant, on the Advertising Council since at least 1945 until 1971 .5' Al­ though the Ad Council promoted itself as a benign entity perfonning public service duties like the Smoky The Bear campaign, its close financial ties to the CIA in the l 950 's and central role in disseminating Cold War propaganda, has been documented by many. 52 Rosenberg's theory of the intellectual bureaucrat who dissociates is likely derived from his Ad Council day-job, but that he never directly acknowledged his daily toil and paycheck in his critical essays shows a serious gap between his theory and practice. While Rosenberg prob­ ably did not know about the CIA involvement at the time,53 there is no way he could not have known about "The People's Capitalism," a piece of propa­ ganda originating with his boss Theodor Repplier that was the template for international visual displays and pamphleteering at home and abroad in South America, Europe: and Asia, staiting in 1957.54 It promoted the notion that capitalism was directed by workers, who participated by purchasing stocks and insurance plans. It is hard to think of anything fmther from Rosenberg 's personal political beliefs. He was probably as openly critical of this enterprise as he was of another one on the subject of mental health,55 given that he de­ rided the kind of centralized global control that The People's Capitalism ini­ tiative was representative of. It is not that he relaxed his standards; it is likely he was hired to be as critical as possible. Rather, it suggests that compromise has its positive aspects; he may have believed in other, more positive work the Council was doing, or that he could be a voice ofreason within the system. It is unfortm1ate that he was unable to cut the same slack for other mass culture producers in art that he gave hims~lfin policy-making. The self-directed intel­ lectual who psychologically washes his hands of his day job while remaining materially tied to it participates in furthering hegemony - but - this illustrates that there may be no choice except t0 work for freedom within a structure of

_hegemony. There is no politically effective position that remains entirely out­ side of popular culture. One must work consciously from within, as Weaver asked illustrators to do.

Art Criticism

Robert Weaver also fit the description of an intellectual wid1in an organization, in that he taught at the School ofVisual A1ts but quit every year.56

He also hated the Society of Illustrators, and suggested in his acceptance speech fo r their Lifetime Achievement Award that they were only giving it to him because _they "preferred to have him in the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in."57 Weaver said that in the l 950 's he felt illustration was the best way to express himself, and that he could always "find within a manuscript some way of putting myself into the illustration,"58 an uncanny echo of Rosenberg's assurance that the intellectual always finds "cracks" in which "to crawl around the obstacles."59 Indeed, in that illustration is handmade, it can never be considered in a Marxist.paradigm to be totally reified labour. Weaver wanted his illustrations to stand alone as art apait from the texts they accompa­ nied.60 As such, they undercut the text, allowing the reader to interpret them against the script if desired.

Fighting for the autonomy of the illustrator suggests fine art values drove Weaver 's program, and indeed, Weaver had never planned to become an illustrator. In l 953 he got his first contract accidentally when he applied for a designer-consultant position at Town and Country magazine, where the ait director decided his sketches would look well as illustrations. Said Weaver, ·'[Illustration] had not appealed to me because of the prevalence of the boy/ girl pretty stuff in magazines. No serious artist would ever consider doing illustration!"61 In light of Weaver 's paranoia of being a "mere" illustrator, in order to claim artistic integrity, he had to do more than just copy the brush­ work of abstract expressionism. Weaver 's innovation was, according to Steven Heller, "to push illustration beyond the single image to the essay fonn or to a dynamic realm that more closely resembled film than magazine art . .. he rejected literalism and emphasized pure fonn cut with irony."62 It is in his development of ambiguity in illustration that Weaver is to be thought of as an innovator. Illustration traditionally clarifies. Weaver spoke strongly of clarity, but insisted in a typically cunning way, "rt is possible to be ambiguous clearly [like Magritte)."63

Rosenberg always laid responsibility solely on the artist to avoid, by _artistic spontaneity, "the kind of mental forcing out of which can come only lifeless illustrations of ready-made ideas."64 He overlooked that the audience is also responsible for determining the message, and it is in the viewer '.1· spon­ taneity that we can find room for political agency in commercial art. In order for it to be said to have occu1Ted, communication must be shared. As a visual communicator, Weaver considered the reader 's experience as well as his own. The "action illustrator" is then one who, as a nuclear reactor, provokes the ·'action" in the reader-viewer. Weaver avoided totalitarian depictions through ambiguous dialectic juxtapositions that cracked open the illusionistic front of illustration and allowed the viewer to engage in free semiosis, what Rosenberg

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called "set[ting] in motion previously uncontrolled, or even undiscovered powers of the mind. "65 Discussing his 1959 Esquire spread on then-Senato; John F. Kennedy, Weaver said,

it can be seen that my pictures sometimes might be said to operate on two or more levels of meaning. What is visible to the naked eye in real life does not always tell the ' truth;' so it is sometimes nec­ essary to recompose life or juxtapose two widely separated ele­ ments in order to make visible and readable a true but invisible meaning or relationship.(,;

Weaver never disclosed what this invisible meaning might be. He had set out to "demonstrate that politics is just as visual and colorful as, say, show busi­ ness ... I was especially interested in the people who surround Kennedy. My observations have an even sharper edge among the paintings which were not used in the article." But he didn't approve of preaching morality directly. "As to Kennedy himself, I discovered I could come to no conclusion about the man and so chose not to do so in the paintings. Let the experts conclude; my job was to produce pictures."67

It would be fascinating to know whether the "sharper" images had been eliminated by Esquire or by Weaver. Marshall Arisman, a longtime friend of Weaver, says Weaver was left of centre, but apolitical.68 This perhaps in­ forms the polyvalent readings possible in the Kennedy series, the ambiguity that allows readers to interpret freely. In the title page image, a swann of can­ didates holding placards that together portray the White House, can be read as either democracy working collectively for the whole, or as individuals break­ ing up the whole into pieces.

In the second image, according to the caption, Kennedy is "poised symbolically on the threshold" of the Capitol's Statuary Hall, "with campaign posters representing the rough-and-tumble way into the serenity of accom­ plishment." The posters outside the door behind Kennedy framino him can ' e, - ,

also stand for profane commercial art versus the sanctified fine art inside this temple, or the inevitable codependence of the two. Kennedy is dwarfed by the Corinthian columns of the hall, and by founding father figures that include the seated socialist-leaning Senator Robert Lafollette. Lafollette, despite popu­ larity and effectiveness, never made it to the top, so he may be read as a bench­ mark for Kennedy or a warning. Weaver includes on the far left signage an­ nouncing SHELTER AREA THIS WAY with an arrow, which may be read two ways. If the arrow is seen to be pointing out of the room and off the page, it is implying that even if Kennedy makes it into the Hall as a celebrated figure: he will find no shelter there. If the arrow is read as an invitation to come further

• into the room, it implies the opposite. The Statuary Hall picture is matched with a small image on the facing

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page of Kennedy and his rival Nixon eyeing one another in a hallway that stretches beyond them into infinity; they had rather awkwardly been assigned onices across from one another. Isolating them together in this barren setting, Weaver makes them both rivals and brethren. Turning to the next spread, a large image of supporters watching from the steps of the Capitol building is paired with a smaller picture ofKetmedy that is positioned on the page so that it appears as if the supporters are looking at him. The latter shows posters on poles depicting his face in sections, that together build a solemn portrait of him, yet they appear to fracture his identity as well. The caption refers to him as ·'the complex young man who holds [supporters'] hopes" while the pull­ quote on the preceding page a~ks, "Can he get the nomination? Will he be elected? What kind of President would he make?" The shattered portrait can then be read as questioning whether Kennedy's mental complexity is a risk, or else suggesting that his complexity is responsive to the different constituents who presumably hold the poles aloft.

Compared to the caricaturish handling of the figures of people close to Kennedy whom Weaver depicts on the following page, the suppmters look­ ing from the steps towards the portrait are imbued with dignity, drawn in natu­ ralistic poses and body proportions, with individuated faces that for the most part av~id exaggeration. In his painting of the people smTounding Kennedy, Weaver has laid identical " toothpaste" grins onto several men, including Kennedy, in bright white paint. Their legs are short and rigid, not conyincing, while the floor falls out from under them in forced perspective. It is in this piece that we best see Weaver's negative opinion of the show business of poli­ tics, in contrast to his sensitive treatment of the hoi polloi on the steps.

Throughout the series, Weaver draws attention to the role of posters, TV, film, and banners in the campaign, a prescient move given that Kennedy's success was later attributed by many to his deft exploitation of broadcast me­ dia. In a small spot-illustration paired with the caricature ofhis team, Kennedy is shown inside a car, with a wall of posters outside the window. He is holding a newspaper and it appears he is being esc01ted by police out of the confines of the posters, one of which prominently spells CIRCU-, possibly circus, lending

. credence to the idea that Weaver was comparing campaigning to show busi­ ness.

On the last page, Weaver showed Kennedy on a movie set, with a false window behind him and studio paraphernalia in the foreground, expos­ ing the fakery of it all. This small spot was paired with a half-page bleed of a theatre screening a film on Kennedy's life. The film still shows men in suits, the se"cond one bearing a passing resemblance to Hitler, with the words THE END ominously dominating. This also acted as a reference to the series itself, since it was the last illustration in the sequence. Overall, the loose handl ing of the brush in sketches where the perspective stayed relatively classical implied

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that what he captured was objective, while the more contrived compositions with flattened space and more awkward figures inserted a feeling of self-con­ scious subjectivity.The interplay of objectivity and subjectivity created some­ thing approximating Rosenberg's "unique psychic tension" that he held out for genuine, critical art,69 a tension that could allow the reader to question both the "truth" and "interpretation" proposed by the illustrations.

Weaver sounded certain that illustration could be artin 1959, but was no longer sure by 1965: "It is quite possible that illustration and art might one day merge, at some vanishing point in history, but for the moment their aims and purposes are quite different," he claimed.70 ln 1986, Weaver explained, "1 don't feel [that illustration can be art] now, but in the early days, yes, I felt that everything I needed to say could be said in illustrations .... Now illustration has become very constricting."7 1 The constrictions were both in the industry and within himself. He remarked:

Illustration is a younger man's art form. I think one eventually gets tired of that kind of illustration where you have to make up solutions to stories that essentially 'are simplistic. If you really have an interest in art or ideas, you need some way of letting that come out, and you can't do it in illustration alone, unless you're given a lot of paper and a lot of time and freedom. 72

The Kennedy assignment was hardly simplistic, but such jobs are not every­ day work. After he had mostly stopped taking contracts, in 1979 he argued that illustration was not y~t art because illustrators had not retained control as art directors and designers: "For a work to be judged as art there must be an artist in full command of the medium. Only when he has pushed it as far as it can go can he be tested fairly by the same critical standards applied to other artists.m3

He defined the medium as "ink, mechanically printed on both sides of the bound pages of a magazine," and said, "I think it is possible to extend the definition of the medium to include an appreciation of the possibilities for narTative that reside uniquely in the structure of the book."74 He devoted his last decades to these "two-story" or "split-level"· books, in which the pages were divided with different narratives (one could say like text and subtext) catrying on independently in each section. They invited the reader to synthe­ size a third meaning, a clear progression from the ambiguity of his earlier work in magazines. Famously, fulfilling Rosenberg's ideal, he refused to ex­ hibit or sell them at all, and he gave away extremely few. Yet he still did not consider himself an artist, because he did not feel he had of anything of impor- ~n~ ~ szy~

1

While Weaver's art for magazines may be seen as satisfying even Harold Rosenberg's criteria for art, Weaver's abandonment of it for non-com­ mercial studio practice suggests Rosenberg's position holds weight. Indeed,

Att Criticism

the Illustrators Pattnership of America and other industry representatives are still fighting for illustrators to be recognized as equal to the creative demands of the early design stages of the projects they are called upon to illustrate. 76 We must conclude then, that Rosenberg's insistence that the mass production of culture conflicts with individual creative input is correct. However, it does not follow that individual artistic expression is not to be found in illustration. Art cannot be limited by medium, method, or even message. The question is not whether "painting" or "illustration" is valid, but whether the practitioner is achieving what is important to him or her, be it self-realization or social par­ ticipation. Weaver himself, even when he denied most illustration was art, still allowed that "the best practitioners rpay one day be remembered as artists."77

Despite, or because of, ruffling feathers, Weaver is considered among illustrators one of the most important of the twentieth century.78 The landscape Weaver contributed to changing was that of how illustrators think of their working relationships. As illustrator Leif Peng put it, "I suspect that what Rob­ ert Weaver did by leaping into mid-air was show others that it could and should be done. Someone must take the daring plunge - and survive - to give others the courage to follow."79 Weaver showed that base and superstructure are not in a deterministic relationship so much as a dialectic one, and that the commer­ cial artist is uniquely positioned to play both sides.

Notes:

1 Sterling Mclhlany. "The Realism of Robert Weaver," American Artist, (Sept. 1959): 65.

' Debate has occuITed in the New York Times 1\1/agazine offices over whether gallery arti sts ought to be credited as" Artwork by ... " or "Illustration by ... " (conversation between Times art directors and attendees ofICON5, The Illustration Conference, July, 2008).

3 For example, a cover of Varoom magazine (July 2008) by Brad Holland, is filled with handwriting complaining that "Actors are artists, musicians are artists ... it seems the only people who are not artists are illustrators."

"Steven Heller, "The End oflllustration?," 1llustrators 'Partnership, 2003, http:// www. i 11 ustratorspartnersh i p.org/0 l _topics/article. php?searchterm=00073 (accessed Nov. 23, 2008).

' I shall retain the use of "he" throughout my discussion of Rosenberg and Weaver's art and writing, since I am primarily discussing a period when women were invisible in art. This is not to reinscribe their marginalization but to expose it.

" Weaver in Mclhlany, 66. 7 Ib'id. 8 Harold Rosenberg, "The Herd of Independent Minds," Discovering the Present

(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1973), 26. Rosenberg's italics were due to his allowing that high m1 was made to order in antiquity.

9 In Richard H. Rovere, "Kennedy 's Last Chance to be President," Esquire li1aga-

vol. 24, no. I 81

zine (April. 1959): 63-70. According to Doug B. Dowd. the location of the original art for these reproductions is unknown.

10 Steven Heller, "The Godfather;· Seeing is Not Believing (Norman Rockwell Museum, 1997), unpaginated.

11 Rosenberg. "The Concept of Action in Painting." 223, 227. 12 Weaver in Walt Reed, The Illustrator in America, 1900-1960 :~ (New York:

Reinhold Publishing, 1967): 268. 13 Weaver in Mclhlany, 67. Original italics. 14 Weaver in Reed, 267. 15 Harold Rosenberg, '·The American Action Painters,., [ 1953) in Tradition of the

New (New York: McGraw-Hill , 1965): 25. 16 Harold Rosenberg, ·The Concept of Action in Painting," in Artworks and

Packages (New York: Horizon Press, 1969): 222. 17 Weaver in Mclhlany, 66. 18 Weaver in Steven Heller. innovators of American !llustration (New York: Van

Nostrand Reinhold, 1986) 16. 19 Ibid. 20 l"squire ii.fagazine, "You saw it First in Esquire," Display ad 217, New York Times

(Nov. 14. 1956): 49. 21 Rosenberg, "The Herd oflndependent Minds;' in Discovering the Present, 16. 22 Rosenberg. "Pop Culture: Kitsch Criticism," in Tradition of the New. 259. 23 Ibid., 265. 2• Ibid ., 267. 25 Ibid. , 264, 265. 26 Ibid .. 26 7. 27 Rosenberg, ·'The Concept of Action in Painting," in Artworks and Packages, 224. 28 Rosenberg, "Art of Bad Conscience", in Artworks and Packages. l 59. 29 Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold

War (London: Granta Books, 1999), 257-278. " 0 Rosenberg, ·'Art and Its Double," in Artworks and Packages, 20-23.

31 Weaver in, Mclhlany, 66. 32 Ibid. 33 "A.n artist is a person who has invented an artist. ... Artists are people who

tamper with what makes them ai1ists." Rosenberg, "Themes," in Discovering the Present, 214.

34 Weaver in Mclhlany, 34. 3; Ibid .. 67. 36 Weaver in Heller, Innovators, 18. ;

7 Rosenberg, "The Herd of Independent Minds.'' in DiscoverinK the Present. 28. 38 Weaver in /·leller, innovators, 16. - 39 Rosenberg, '"The Herd oflndependent Minds," in Discovering the Present, 18. • 0 Weaver in Heller, Innovators, 18.

41 Selfporrrait, circa 1960, reproduced in Seeing is Not Believing: The Art of Robert Weaver, [ exhibition catalogue for The Norman Rockewell Museum and the School of Visual Arts] (New York and Stockbridge: Visual Arts Press 1997): unpaginated. The Location of the original art is unknown.

42 Rosenberg, " Pop Culture: Kitsch Criticism," in Tradition of the New, 266.

Art Criticism

4-' Weaver in Mclhlany, 66. H Rosenberg, --virtuosos of Boredom," in Discovering the Present, 120-121 . • 5 Rosenberg. --The Herd of Independent .Minds," in Discovering the Present, 28. •1• A reference to Rosenberg 's a<;sertion that mass culture forces fine art to constantly

retreat to more rarified realms, cited above. "' Weaver in Reed, 267. "Rosenberg, ''The Orgamerican Phantasy," in Tradition of the New, 271. •'' Rosenberg, "Twi light of the Intellectuals," ( 1958) in Defining the Present, 173. w Rosenberg , "The Intellectua l and His Future," [ 1965] in Defining the Present,

194. ;i Eve Mangurten [for the Advertising Council], to Grove by email on Oct. 30. 2008. ' 2 E.e.., Robert Haddow, "Material Culture and the Cold War: International Trade

Fairs and the American Pav11ion at the 1958 Brussels World 's Fair" (Ph.D diss., University of Minnesota, 1994); Scott Lucas, Freedoms f,flar: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union (New York: NYU Press, 1999); Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Culwral Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999).

,:, Rosenberg, ··Stopping Communism," in Defining the Present, 3 IO. In this essay he lambasts the dishonesty of the CIA in their dealings with intellectuals.

;. Haddow, I 994, 44, 52, 54-56, 61, 317. ;; Archivist's note, Harold Rosenberg Finding Aid, Getty Institute. Los Angeles. ' 6 Marshall Arisman, interview with Grove on October 27, 2008. ;, Ibid. '' Weaver in Heller, Innovators, 16. ''> Rosenberg, "The Intellectual and His Future," in Defining the Present, 194. <·0 Weaver in Heller, Innovators, 17. (,I Ibid. "2 Steven Heller, "Robert Weaver 1924- I 994; · Print 48.5 (1994): 130. r,; Robert Weaver, "Robert Weaver's Illustration Issue," Print (Nov-Dec 1979);

reprinted as " lntrospectives:· in Print 48.5 ( 1994): 116. ,,.i Rosenberg, "AI1 of Bad Conscience," in Artworks and Packages, 167-168. "5 Rosenberg, "Art and Its Doub le,'· in Artworks and Packages, 20-23. '''' Weaver in Mclhlany, 35. ''

7 Ibid. , 35, 65. ,,, Arisman in interview with Grove. "" Rosenberg, " Pop culture: Kitsch Criticism," in Tradition of the New, 267. '" Weaver in Reed, 267. 71 Weaver in Heller, 16. 72 Ibid. , 19. 73 Weaver, Print ( 1994 ): I l 6. '• I.bid. , 117. ,; Arisman in interview with Grove. 7'' For essavs on " the art of illustration.'' see the Illustrators Partnership of America,

http:/i~vww. i 11 ustratorspartnership.org/0 I_ topics/topics.php?searchtype=topic Category&searchterm=artofi l lustrntion&topi cType=category& topicTenn=0 l.

77 Weaver, Print ( 1994 ): 116. " Conversations with Milton Glaser, Marshall Arisman. Steven Heller. and Walt

vol. 24, no. l 83