Art/Illustration

History of Illustration Susan Doyle, Jaleen Grove & Whitney Sherman (editors)

Chapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970-Early 2000s Whitney Sherman

ISBN: 9781501342110

CSULB Library Permalink: https://csu-lb.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CALS_ULB/d7ul0l/alma991015984308502910

Doyle, Susan, et al., editors. History of Illustration. Fairchild Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.

Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970-Early 2000s Whitney Sherman

C hapter 27: Print Illustrat io n in the Postm odern World , 1970- Early 2000s 45 1

With the changing cultural and technological environments of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the nature of print illustration shifted. The relationship of illustration to design and to gallery-specific works, the evolution of"conceptual" illustration's continuing complex negotiations of meaning, and the influence of "lowbrow" aesthetics in shaping visual sensibilities all had deep-rooted instinctual and intellectual effects on illustration practice. This chapter considers these effects alongside the confluence of media and culture, and the use of emerging digital tools as agents of change inside and outside the industry.

Operating in Separate Spheres

As previous chapters have shown, illustration, lettering, and page layout were often performed by the same individual, who was alternately referred to as a graphic artist or commercial artist. Just prior to and after World War II, many graphic artists were influenced by modernist design ideas within the International Typographic (or Swiss) Style that emphasized the unity and simplicity of page design. These advocates of modernism, for the most part, preferred sans­ serif typography and photography, avoiding ornamentation and narrative illustration. Such graphic arts professionals started to view their activities as distinct from that of illustrators, and "graphic designers" (a term first coined in 1922 that gained acceptance in the 1950s) began to operate in a separate sphere. This evolution can be seen in the history of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), a professional and industry organization established to serve individuals working within practices identified as "graphic arts" (including illustration). During the 1950s, this group shifted its mission away from the concerns of printers and illustrators toward modernist design practitioners. Tellingly, in 2005, the AIGA officially changed its name to AIGA, the professional association for design.

Critical Reconsideration of Illustration in the Postmodern Era

While contemporary practitioners may not formally concern themselves with art theory as they make or discuss their work, they are nonetheless affected by the discourse of art critics, philosophers, and scholars, as well as by discussions about politics, film , science, music, and other topics that make audiences think differently about images.

In the 1960s, widespread social change-the Civil Rights Movement, feminism, gay rights, anti-war student­ led protests in France and the United States, and the emerging independence of formerly colonized countries­ was caused by and resulted in widespread questioning of hegemonic values and beliefs. Late-twentieth-century thought particularly challenged the assumptions of the goodness of"progress" that underpins high modernism. Theorists debated the validity ofEuropean superiority, the value of technological change, the ability oflanguage to capture truth, and categories such as gender and race. In media and art theory, analysts and critics skeptical of modernist ideals embraced inquiry through methods derived from psychoanalysis, semiotics, feminism, and literary and cultural theory to expose the hidden power

structures that influence culture-including the making and consumption of visual art and texts. Such applications of critical theory are colloquially referred to as deconstruction (although properly, the term means a specific kind ofliterary criticism; see Theme Box 50, "Derrida: Deconstruction and Floating Signifiers"). This profound alteration in mindset led the new era to be referred to as the Postmodern.

Postmodernism led to new concepts as well as new forms. At mid-century, much illustration was derided in modern art discourse, which privileged abstraction and an elitist avant-garde. Many illustrators in turn questioned modernism's assumptions, and instead affirmed the importance of craftsmanship, narrative, and archetypal structures in art. In the Postmodern era, however, illustrators around the world began creating diverse kinds of images using multiple visual languages from all varieties of art, informed by the principles of deconstruction.

Stylistic Diversification after 1970

The social changes of the 1960s contributed to a variety of expressions and perspectives in illustration. Working within mai nstream mass media, American illustrators Bernie Fuchs (1932-2009), Robert M. Cunningham (1924-2010), Robert Heindel (1938-2005), and Bob Peak (1927-1992) reinvigorated the look and feel of magazine illustration by embracing stylistic innovation, as Robert Weaver (American, 1924- 1994) had (see Chapter 24). Because they were less focused on detail than many of their predecessors had been, much of their imagery appeared sympathetic to the abstraction prevalent in fine art of the 1950s and 1960s, though subject matter remained loosely recognizable.

In the 1970s, Peak and others established a new market for figurative illustration that competed with photography. Peak experimented with montaged compositions and textural effects, and favored strong color palettes in what evolved over time into his seminal movie poster style (Figure 27.1). Also working with bolder coloration was Figure 27.1

Bob Peak, movie poster illustra tion for Apocalypse Now, United Art ists/Omni Zoetrope, 1979. Produced only fo ur years after the end of the Vietnam War, the Apocalypse Now poster art shows a quietly demonic head of the film's antagonist, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz played by Marlon Brando. Central to the anti-war storyline was Kurtz's unfe ttered and savage insanity in the darkness of ,var. Peak evokes these themes rather than showing any pafti cu­ lar moment in detail. Brando's dripping head is bathed i1l dramatic light, noat­ ing above a watery scene with explosive flashes illuminating an inky sky.

© Bob Peak.

452 Part V: The Evolution of lllustration in an Electronic Age

Theme Box 50: Derrida: Deconstruction and Floating Signifiers by Sheena Calvert and JoAnn Purcell

Jacques Derrida (French, 1930- 2004) was a philosopher whose extensive written output covers diverse subjects such as phenom­ enology, existentialism, ethics, and structuralism; but his name is primarily associated with the concept of deconstruction. Meaning "of construction" in French, decon­ struction is not simply about taking apart language and meaning. Rather, it is the critical analysis of signs (images, texts, sounds, and so on) to see how language and meaning are assembled, how they match , and how they clash . In this sense, deconstruction is creative, generat­ ing new meanings and insights.

Derrida 's work concerns semiot­ ics (see Chapter 2, Theme Box 7, "Saussure and Peirce: Semiotics'!, the study of how signs stand for ideas and things. Remember, Ferdinand de Saussure posited that a sign is made up of a "signifier" (an il lustration) and a "signified" (what it stands for); and he identified a system of rules related to social behavior ("structures") that deter­ mined how such signs would be used and decoded. His school of thought is known as structuralism. Derrida's ideas advanced these concepts and contributed to the school of thought known as post­ structuralism, because he disputed the notion that communication and meaning are exactingly determined.

Chal lenging the structuralist contention that signs denote specific meanings, Derrida theorized that signifiers "float," or convey meaning only fleetingly. A floating signifier is independent of any one signified, and is not intended to point toward any specific meaning. It is in "free play" and is involved in an "indefinite referral of signifier to signified ," as Derrida put it . Consider that when an illustration is made, it always has

a context because it has a client and an intended audience. But the context floats for the actual viewers every time they view it because, although people are participants in social structures, each person has a unique state of mind, distractions, personal experience, and past asso­ ciations through which he or she interprets the signifier.

For Saussure, signs differ from one another, and our ability to see the differences between signs is what allows us to know what they mean. For Derrida, the difference between signs is never so certain, and determining meaning (the signified) is never-ending because the signified and the signifier are like wandering chameleons, changing appearances according to nuances of contexts that people see around them. The other originator of semiotic theory, Charles Sanders Peirce, also believed that meaning was constantly in flux, and gave the name semiosis to the process of attempting to fix meaning only to have it sl ip away again.

Signification is central to illus­ tration . To play with constructing/ deconstructing meaning is to create new worlds with the "language" of images. An example of a place where the signifier and the signified have been disconnected is a work by the Surrealist Rene Magritte (French , 1898-1967), whose famous 1936 painting The Treachery of Images (Figure 3 in the Introduction) tries to break the links between the image, the words describing it, and the signified. Magritte paints a tobacco pipe but captions it in French with "This is not a pipe" (Ceci n'est pas une pipe), reminding us that the painting itself (signifier) is not a pipe (signified). This painting affirms the abil ity of artists and illus­ trators to deconstruct and construct

meaning according to their own playful interpretation of images and text-a fundamental component of conceptual il lustration .

That meaning is never stable is an important concept underpin- ning Postmodern theories and the interpretation of images-a principle most ambitiously demonstrated by Luigi Serafini's (Italian, b. 1949) opus Codex Seraphinianus (1981). Despite resembling a scientific text of utmost clarity, the Codex confounds illustration's basic purpose of illuminating (in the sense of clarifying meaning) by using an indecipherable script and ambiguous image relationships. A key point for the illustrator is that signification is contingent upon context, audience, and juxtaposition more than it is on authorial intent.

Further Reading Derrida, Jacques, Dissemination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981 ).

Derrida, Jacques, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (Paris: Minuit, 1967).

Derrida, Jacques, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl 's Theory of Signs (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973).

Derrida, Jacques, Writing and Difference (Paris: Seuil, 1967).

Serafini, Luigi, Codex Seraphinianus (M ilano: Franco Maria Ricci, 1981 ).

*Quoted material attributable to subject

Robert M. Cunningham, who offered fresh perspectives on familiar scenes by employing brilliant color within strong, flattened compositions inspired by the sweeping horizon of the Bahamas, which he visited frequently (Figure 27.2); and by the art of color field painters Mark Rothko (Latvian, American, 1903-1970) and Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922-1993).

An important periodical in the development of new illustration techniques in the late 1960s and '70s was Lithopinion, published by Local One of the trade union Amalgamated Lithographers of America. Filled with thoughtful essays on diverse topics and views, the glossy, superbly printed magazine solicited the most innovative illustration from leading illustrators, who were allowed freedom to experiment. It was for an assignment documenting British pubs that Bernie Fuchs developed the technique that made him famous: lush color fields loosely painted using layers of oil glaze (he had previously used acrylics). Fuchs's images were inspired by cinematic devices such as a flattened depth of field or dynamic cropping (Figure 27.3). He enjoyed a long career of illustrating for sports and lifestyle magazines, and was a founder of the Illustrators Workshop, a preeminent commercial art program that he taught with Alan E. Cober (American, 1935- 1998), Fred Otnes (American, 1925-2015), Mark English (American, b. 1933), Robert Heindel, and Bob Peak.

Equally dynamic is the work of Robert Heindel, whose artistic direction took a turn after he saw ballet legends Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev dancing Paradise Lost. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, Heindel, acting

Figure 27.2 Robert M. Cunningham, Olympic Runner, U.S. Postal Service stamp, 1980. Cunningham's planar approach uses dramati c light and shadow to propel this runn er fo rwa rd as he breaks free of the colo r fl eld behind him. Cunningham photographed his subjects and their surroundings ex tensively, and like many artists of the era, projected and manipulated images to establish a final com­ position that was painted in acrylics on canvas.

Collect ion of the Norman Rockwell Museum.

C hapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970-Early 2000s 453

on invitation by prestigious dance companies, collaborated with them to produce and exhibit bodies of work. As with Cunningham and Peak, powerful composition and color were at the heart ofHeindel's work (Figure 27.4).

Open investigation of expressive painterly approaches can also be seen in the work ofR. Gregory Christie (American, b. 1971), who illustrates fiction and nonfiction stories on black lives. Initially working as an editorial illustrator for major national magazines before moving into children's literature, Christie-a three-time Coretta Scott King award winner-combines flat abstract shapes and tonally rendered areas, creating distorted yet recognizable faces that communicate the individual's personality or emotions. Christie's book jacket and interior images cover

Figure 27.3 Bernie Fuchs, illus­ tration in the book Ride Like the Wind by the artis t, Blue Sky Press, 2004. Though showing a limited amount of his famous rubbed­ out technique, this image for a children's book set in the early days of the Pony Exp ress still shows Fuchs's signature style, characterized by wiped-out areas of thi nned oi l paint on canvas, asymmet­ rical composition, dynam ic comple­ mentary colors, and expressive brush strokes. He once told an interviewer that the hardest part of hi s job was getting the idea: "my aim is ... to make illustrations that wi ll contr ibute to, and perhaps heighten, the meaning, drama, and emotion of the words."

Private collec tion.

Figure 27.4 Robert Heindel, The White Skirt , I 996. Oil on board, 36 X 48''. Heindel's long- term relationship wi th dance compan ies gave him extraor­ dinary access to his subjects, which informed his expressive body of work. His canvases are liberally cov­ ered with paint that is then scribed and scraped to create the effects of move­ ment or to freeze the action.

Private collect ion. Fu rther information about Robert Heindel is available at www .thereddotgallery.com.

Figure 27.5 R. Gregory Christie, Coltrane. The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings Disc Four, CD cover, Impulse' Records, 1997. This is one of four CD covers for the musicians john Coltrane, Joe Sample, Justice System, and George Benson expressively painted in acrylic on paper.

Artwork © R. Gregory Christie.

Figure 27.6 Heather Cooper, book cover art, Bluebeard's Egg by Margaret Atwood, McClelland & Stewart, 1983. O il on canvas, 18 x 24': In a highly unu - sual arrangen1ent, prominent auth or Margaret Atwood com missioned Cooper herself. Although the book's fem inist short stories are largely based in contem­ porary Toronto, Cooper's image invokes the legacy of historica l patriar­ chy by referencing Pre-Raphaelite illustration that in turn looked to Gothic art.

Image cou rtesy of I-leather Cooper.

454 Part V: 11,e Evolut ion of Illustration in an Electroni c Age

topics like gender equality and tell the stories of notable figures such as Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Richard Wright. His music CD covers used similar techniques (Figure 27.5).

Factors endemic to the postmodern era such as feminism, the surging independence of illustrators, and the recouping of archetypal themes and antiquarian styles come together in the work of Heather Cooper ( Canadian, b. 1945). Having cofounded design company Burns and Cooper in 1970, Cooper created advertising and editorial illustration that drew heavily on illustration history. Like others of this period, she strove to bridge personal expression with commercial obligation in assignments such as the Roots clothing company's iconic beaver logo and the book cover for Bluebeard's Egg (Figure 27.6). The latter painting was simultaneously issued as a poster and as a limited edition print.

Editorial Illustration after 1970

Principally created with traditional media until very late in the century, mainstream editorial illustration as well as illustration for niche and enthusiast markets continued to appear in print in national American magazines such as The Progressive, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and the New York Times, to name a few. Regional markets also grew their own crop of prominent publications, such as Texas Monthly, the Washingtonian, the Plain Dealer, and Detroit Free Press. The work seen in each of these publications has varied greatly, with art directors developing their own cadre of regulars whose work has come to singularly define each publication.

Conceptual illustration, which relies on the illustrator's point of view communicated through visual metaphors and other nonliteral approaches, works well for political and socially critical material; for illustrations concerning medical or psychological topics; and for business concepts in which a didactic or realistic approach might be off-putting or uninteresting. Alan E. Cober (American, 1935-1998) believed that art had the power to influence and inform public opinion, and he documented with compassion the experiences of society's hidden populations-the incarcerated, the mentally ill, and the elderly-in expressive, symbolic drawings published in books, magazines, and newspapers. Throughout his life, Cober filled hundreds of sketchbooks

I I

Figure 27.7

r \ \

I Alan E. Caber, sketchbook drawing of electric chair, Sing-Si ng Co rrectional Facility, 1971. 8 3/" x IO''. Caber's unwavering documentary ink-on-paper drawings captured elements of the death row chamber at th e notor ious Sing-S ing Cor rectional Fac ility in Ossining, New York, near where he lived . He also documented the inhumane treatment of patients at the Willowbrook State School for th e mentally chal­ lenged in Staten Island , New York.

Collection of Ellen Cober.

Figure 27.8 Marshall Arisman , The Cu rse of Violent Crime, cover art for Time, I 98 I. Oil on ragboard, 23 x 29''. Although much of his work has been made to be exhibited in a gallery, Arisman in 2005 expressed his undifferentiated view of appli ed and fine art , saying, "The difference between the illustration stuff and my personal work or fine art work is really time:·

Smithsonian Institute.

with everything from simple notations to fully developed paintings, often integrating textual inscriptions within his art (Figure 27.7). He described his style as a kind of "magic realism;' characterized by a searching pen line and the distortion of form in the tradition of Ben Shahn (Lithuanian, American, 1898- 1969) and George Grosz (see Chapter 19).

Marshall Arisman (American, b. 1937) has tackled strong editorial subjects throughout his illustration career. His image for the Violent Crime issue of Time magazine was conceptually based on his belief (stated in a September 2005 interview for the blog Tastes Like Chicken) "that when you put a gun in your hand it is not you with a gun-you are actually violence itself. .. ;" adding that "the attempt on the Time cover was to simply make the face and the gun the same phenomenon" (Figure 27.8). Violence has been an ongoing theme in Arisman's work beginning with his 1973 publication Frozen Images: Drawings by Marshall Arisman, a compilation that focused on media-driven violence. The black-and-white images are marked by writhing figures, ink spatter, and grisly expressions that reflect deep emotional anger and horror. Influences such as Francisco Goya ( Chapter 12) and Francis Bacon (Irish, 1909-1992) can readily be seen in Arisman's editorial paintings. His primary interests are in creating an emotional response and in storytelling. He uses his hands to paint rather than a brush, to express his emotions more directly during the process.

Chapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970-Early 2000s 455

Figure 27.9 Brad Holland, ill ustration in "Straight to the Vein;' Op-Ed page, New York Times, 1971. Employing a visual metaphor, Holland connects a spoon (used to prepare heroin for injection) with the concept of spoon-feed ing or overindulging the many mouths on the arm in thi s pen-and-ink drawing. His subject's stare describes an intense "hunger:' Holland created this image without an assigned editorial context, and art director JC Suares only later picked it up for use in an article on addiction, poverty, race, and the fai lures of the prison system.

© I 970, Brad Holland.

The Op-Ed Page and Op-Art

Particularly influential after 1970 was the New York Times Op-Ed page (opposite editorial) where writers, other than the editors, expressed their opinions-paired with some of the most provocative illustration of the era. While the editorial page had previously existed in the Times and other papers, it wasn't until then, under art director Jean­ Claude "JC" Suares (Egyptian, American, 1942-2013), that the Op-Ed page adopted an illustrated format. Utilizing conceptual illustration often influenced by Surrealism (see Chapter 19), Suares initiated a new visual era for magazine and news editorial pages. He introduced numerous Eastern European illustrators to the U.S. market, and fostered the editorial careers of many including Eugene Mihaesco (Romanian, b. 1937), Anita Siegel (American, 1939-2011), Ralph Steadman (British, b. 1936), and Brad Holland (American, b. 1943), to name a few. Considered a pioneer of conceptual illustration, Holland often defied the art direction status quo by insisting that he not reiterate the text literally (Figure 27.9).

By the beginning of 1980s, the Op-Ed page had begun to reach its high point of commissioning myriad domestic and international illustration talent. Following the successful tenure of Suares, Jerelle Kraus (American) directed the Op-Ed page in two discontinuous stages: 1979-1989 and 1993-1996. Kraus continued the tradition of hiring Eastern European illustrators active in the Polish social movement Solidarnosc (Independent

456 Part V: The Evolution of Illustrat ion in an Electronic Age

Self-governing Labor Union "Solidarity") and known for their graphic subversion and conceptual acuity.

Kraus also commissioned French illustrator Roland Topor ( 1938-1997), whose ink drawings projected brutal force and the macabre, profoundly influencing the direction of the Op-Ed page as well as many fellow editorial illustrators in the late 1970s. He stated that an illustrator's duty is "to put your deepest soul on paper, to communicate directly from your nakedness. Anything less is unforgivable:'

Senior editors sometimes rejected the more controversial art, forcing Suares and Kraus to advocate passionately for creative freedom. In 1997, the Op-Ed page came under the art direction of Nicholas Blechman (American, b. 1967), himself an illustrator (and son of R. 0. Blechman, Chapter 24), who began to offer more stand-alone images such as photography, informational charts, and drawings under the banner title of Op-Art. Illustrator Lauren Redniss's (American) Op-Art pages combine on-the-street interviews with her journalistic drawing in full-page graphic compositions clamoring to be read in dynamic image-and-text relationships (Figure 27.10). Today, both the Op-Art and the Op-Ed page remain desirable commissions for illustrators despite current tighter editorial controls and emphasis on political correctness.

Figure 27.10

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Lauren Redniss, "Li lli ette Cou ncil;' Op-A rt page, New York Times, January 2, 2005. Ink on paper. Pulitzer Prize nominee Lauren Red niss embeds Lilliette Council's oral history within her on-location drawing to fill the entire tabloid -sized page. As if in a sketchbook, Redniss surround s the images with Council's personal account of being born into slavery.

The Progressive

Under the art direction of Patrick J. B. Flynn (American, b. 1952) from 1981 to 1999, The Progressive (formerly La Follette's Weekly, 1909)-a monthly magazine of investigative reporting, political commentary, cultural coverage, activism, interviews, poetry, and humor­ became a haven for expressive editorial illustrators in the 1980s. Having formerly worked at the New York Times under JC Suarez, Flynn believed that the art would be remembered long after the writing if the right illustrator was selected for each project and given creative freedom. Frances Jetter (American, b. 1951), for example, responded to news of senseless violence in Kosovo and Columbine with an image showing a foreground planet heavily scarred as bullets continue to hit its surface. A figure slumps partially into a crater-a disembodied hand and foot scattered on the surface nearby (Figure 27.11).

The New Yorker

Since 1925, New Yorker covers have represented a particular urbane perspective of New Yorkers' day-to-day lives, while providing content with a broader cultural resonance. In the 1990s, subjects like Art Spiegelman's Valentine's Day cover of an orthodox Jewish man kissing a woman of color (sometimes referred to as The Kiss) sparked national conversations. That cover was assigned by then-editor Tina Brown, who found in Spiegelman a voice for developing some of her more controversial themes .

Figure 27.11 Frances Jetter, "Kosovo, Columbine, etc.;' art for The Progressive, 1999. Linocut. As the granddaughter of an active union worker, Frances Jetter was drawn to The Progressive for political reasons. She is influenced by Ger man political artists George Grosz and Kathe Kollwitz ( Chapter I 9), along with the comic strip commentary in MAD magazine (Chapter 23).

Frances Jetter, © 1999.

Soon after, she hired covers art director Frarn;:oise Mouly, who, with her husband Spiegelman, had already ruffled the status quo with their edgy comics anthology RAW (1980-1991) (see Chapter 26). Particularly for politically charged themes, Mouly chose cover artists for their ability to convey a message rather than for purely stylistic reasons. This practice continued into the 2000s with Barry Blitt (Canadian, American, b. 1958) creating controversial covers such as the infamous "Obama fist bump" image (Figure 27.12). Inspired by the racist scare tactics used by political opponents of then-Senator Barack Obama, who was campaigning to win the 2008 presidential election, the satirical picture caused a firestorm of commentary.

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone magazine cultivated its use of illustration during Fred Woodward's tenure as art director from 1987 to 2001. The magazine typically commissioned cover portraits of prominent or rising figures in entertainment, as well as images for music reviews and political coverage. Diverse in style, Rolling Stone caricatures rarely relied

Figure 27. 12 Barry Bli tt, "The Poli tics of Fear;' cover art, The New Yorker, July 21, 2008. Watercolor on paper. Oppositional poli tical com mentary of the time suggested that Obama was Muslim and thus not ''American;' politically or nationalistically. The absurdity of the comment led Blitt to parody the situation by going "over-the-top" with cultural markers: Michelle and Barack Obama are in an oval office {referring to the White House's center of presidential act ivity) , wearing garb to suggest she is an Angela Davis-style radical and he is a follower of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (seen in the port rait over the fireplace). Blitt finishes his concoction with a celebratory fi st bump while an American fl ag burns in the fireplace. The satirical image was, nonetheless, taken literally by many.

Collection oft he arti st.

C hapter 27: Print lllustration in the Postm odern Wo rld, 1970-Early 2000s 457

on stereotypes and were frequent ly concept-driven illustrations that conveyed aspects of the subject's personality, such as Ralph Steadman's (British, b. 1936) portrait of Hunter S. Thompson (Figure 27.13).

Other venerable RS illust rators include Anita Kunz (Canadian, b. 1956) (Figure 27. 14), Philip Burke (American, b. 1956), Robert Grossman (American, b. 1940) , and Robert Risko (American, b. 1956). In the twenty-first century, talents such as Sam Weber (American, b. 1981), Rick Sealock (Canadian, b. 1975), Yuko Shimizu (Japanese, American, b. 1970), Victor Melamed (Russian, b. 1977), and Edward Kinsella (American, b. 1983) have contributed to upwards of twenty-seven international editions.

Figure 27. 13 Ralph Steadman, Vintage Dr. Gonzo from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas;' Rolling Stone, 1971. Hunter S. Thompson's now infamous book was serialized in th e magazin e. Steadman was com missioned after attempts at using photography fa iled; his work was already known at RS for its savage politica l and social com mentary. Using va rying ink lines and splotches, and a blending of mechanical and freehand cross­ hatching, he evokes precis ion and chaos. Steadman was sent the book's manuscript and severa l days later shipped all of the drawings back. None were rejected.

© Ralph Steadman Art Collection 20 16. All rights reserved.

Figure 27.14 Anita Kunz, por­ trait of Chuck Berry, Rolling Stone, 1988. Kunz's mixed media illustrations are tightly rendered caricatures captur­ ing the nature of the subject while commenting o n their si tuation. Here, she imagines the mo ment when musician Chuck Berry "discovers" his famo us Duck Wa lk. The slanting angles in the back­ ground and the figure's pose give the piece movement wi thout extreme exaggeration.

Collection of Jann VVenncr.

458 Part V: The Evolution of Illustration in an Electronic Age

Crucial Marketplace Changes, 1975-1990

The Fax and the Courier

During the 1980s and before, illustration for editorial and advertising markets was typically commissioned from local talents who could bring portfolios to an art director's office, making it imperative for most illustrators to be in or near a city center in order to acquire high-profile projects. Sketches and finished works were mailed or hand-delivered to the client, and the job was discussed in person or by phone.

With the introduction of Exxon's Qwip fax machine (abbreviation of facsimile) in the mid- to late-l 970s, black-and-white text and imagery could be sent using telephone lines to anyone who had a similar machine, anywhere in the world. At first, the machines were somewhat clunky in design and lengthy in processing time, but improved machines enjoyed widespread use in the 1980s. The fax machine broke down the barriers between a distant market and an illustrator. Receipt of a manuscript or sketch approval could occur within a day, accelerating the creative and business process.

The second important change for editorial illustration was the establishment of courier company Federal Express (FedEx) in 1971. Deadlines for editorial assignments are notoriously tight, and FedEx provided a method for rapid delivery of final art. By the early to mid-1980s, FedEx was vital to the day-to-day mechanics of all markets within the field, with the cost routinely covered by the client. In the 1990s, the process of sending tangible finished illustrations by courier began to be replaced by transmission of scanned images by email as both desktop scanner and Internet use increased.

The Annual

Long an established social and professional club, the New York Society of Illustrators ( established 1901, Chapter 20) produced its first annual in 1959. Initially, pages were printed in black and white, then in color in 2005. The Society's Annual has chronicled much of the best illustration work being produced nationally and internationally.

In 1981, EdwardBooth-Clibborn (British, b. 1932), editor of the curated annual European Illustration (1973), became critical of much of the more traditional work being celebrated in American illustration annuals. In New York, he met with Robert Priest (British American, b. 1946), then-art director of Esquire; illustrators Julian Allen (British, 1942-1998) and Marshall Arisman (American, b. 1937); and Steven Heller (American, b. 1950), then-art director of the New York Times Book Review. In April 1981, Priest, Allen, Arisman, and Heller agreed that the United States was ready for an alternative vehicle with which to celebrate a new wave

of expressionistic, illustration brut (see below), and conceptual approaches. The American Illustration Annual was born, giving the selected works ample space on each page to create a forum in which the illustrations served as commentary in their own right. Over the years, the cover of the annual American Illustration has included images by some of the most influential illustrators in the United States, including Kinuko Craft (Japanese, American, b. 1940) for Annual #3; Peter Sis (Czechoslovakian, American, b. 1949) for Annual #5; Jack Unruh (American, 1935-2016) for Annual #8; Istvan Banyai (Hungarian, American, b. 1949) for Annual #18; Christoph Niemann (German, American, b. 1970) for Annual #23; and You Jung Byun (Korean, American, b. 1981) for the special Annual #32 (Figure 27.15).

Another significant annual of the time was the Print Regional Design Annual in which illustrations were selected and displayed by regions of the United States in an attempt to be more inclusive than most competitive annuals. Along with the aforementioned communication technologies, annuals stimulated stylistic innovation and opened a broader base of markets for illustrators.

10

Figure 27.15 You Jung Byun, cover, American illustration #32 (Live Cover Project) , 2013. Marker on book cloth cover, 9 ;;, x IO 3//'. Normally co mmissioned from one artist, in 201 3 American illustration direc­ tor Mark Heflin created an eve nt out of the cove r art commission by inviting fo rty illustrators to create ten hand-painted/drawn covers each- such as this one by Byun. The 400 unique covers we re sent randomly to buyers. The other covers were all white with only the black typography on them.

© 20 13, You Jung Byun. Image courtesy of American Photography/ American Ill ust ration.

Chapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970-Early 2000s 459

Theme Box 51: Illustrator as Witness: Contemporary Visual Journalism by Victor Juhasz and Whitney Sherman

Dominant use of photography and video in news documentation and reporting may lead one to the impression that visual journalism, the act of recording events in real time using some form of drawing, has all but disappeared. However, we see a rise in its uses as a way to record daily life and environments around us, and as a complement to contemporary photojournal- ism. Visual journalism continues to occupy a distinct role in the world of illustration and to be invaluable to our understanding of many events in ways that a photograph may not capture.

Photojournalism's great advan­ tage and undeniable power are in catching the split-second occur­ rence and freezing that moment in its details. Unlike drawn visual journalism, photography does not linger, contemplate, edit, interpret, or prioritize information of an observed experience. The very act of drawing is slower, and in the case of visual journalism, the process relies on the illustrator's absorption of the scene, resultant responses, and choices concerning how information is recorded. However objective the intent, during the drawing process, subjective editorial choices are made about what the illustrator considers important - and how it is brought to the viewer's attention. The viewer can follow and digest the creative process, identifying with the illustra­ tor 's experience.

War art figures significantly in visual journalism (see Chapters 14 and 21) . Artist/ illustrators in or embedded with the military can express a humanistic sensibility and a subtler totality of the experience; the physical and psychological wounds feel personal (see Figure TB51 .1). The best courtroom artists bring psychological acuity and drama to their subject matter, capturing likenesses and gestures in places where cameras are forbidden.

Their images communicate the often long daily proceedings and the varied , sometimes fleeting body language that occurs in courtroom environments. They may record and express the passage of time in one image, or compose dispa­ rate elements into one persuasive composition. Visual journalists also create powerfully unique records of news events such as protests, political debates, and environmental disasters. Although not as imbued with drama, interview and travel journalism are prevalent, as seen in the increasing number of socially and culturally driven urban sketching groups that record an ever-changing public scene. Each is an energetic practice that draws the viewer into the intimate act of observation , an act that has adapted and changed since the advent of printing.

Coming out of the war years, Howard Brodie (American, 1915- 2010) sketched during World War II in the South Pacific and Europe.

f igure TBS 1.1

Later, as CBS-TV's premier court­ room artist , he covered, among others, Jack Ruby's trial for killing Lee Harvey Oswald . And Kerr Eby (Canadian, 1890-1946) covered both world wars, leaving a vast historical record of combat in the twentieth century (see Chapter 21).

Notable postwar practitioners include Robert Weaver, whose strik­ ing on-location drawings appeared in Sports Illustrated, Life, and Esquire ; Franklin McMahon (American, 1921-2012), the "artist-reporter" who covered the news from space­ craft landings to the trial of the killers of Emmett Till, a catalyst for the civil ­ rights movement; and Alan E. Cober who crafted a frightening beauty in his drawings of inmates, the insti­ tutionalized, and the elderly. Most recently, reportage and courtroom artist Janet Hamlin , along with her editorial and picture book work, has covered the tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the most active court­ room artist from 2006 to present.

Victor Juhasz, on-location sketch, published in GQ online, July 2012. Ink on paper. Medics tend to a man wounded by an improvised explosive device (JED) , Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, August, 2011.

Courtesy of Victor Juhasz

Figure 27.16

460 Part V: The Evolu tio n of Illustration in an Elec tronic Age

Stylistic Diversity in the Contemporary Context

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Postmodernist artists began reviving and repurposing visual styles of the past and borrowing from subcultures, and illustrators were doing much of the same. Associated with the California art scene, artists working in Lowbrow or Pop Surrealism appropriated local popular culture forms and influenced commissioned illustration art, eventually redefining what was acceptable in illustration in the 2000s and after.

Lowbrow, Pop Surrealism, and Illustration Brut

All three of these labels share certain characteristics, yet represent vastly different imagery. Opinions differ on whether the terms Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism are interchangeable. Lowbrow, which contrasts with highbrow or elite culture, is a term originating in 1979 when artist Robert Williams (American, b. 1943) titled his book The Lowbrow Art of Robert Williams in reaction to established highbrow art venues that would not accept his work. Lowbrow includes any expression of popular culture widely considered taboo, tasteless, offensive, or even illegal by polite mainstream standards, with cultural roots often originating in popular illustration, underground comix, punk music, erotica, kitsch, surfer, and hot-rod subcultures (see Chapter 19, Theme Box 40, "Greenberg: Avant-Garde and Kitsch"). Lowbrow developed concurrently with Northern California street art and early aspects of the DIY (do-it-yourself) movement.

Mark Ryden, Snow White, 1997. Oil on canvas, 48 x 72". Th is image appeared in Ryden's debut exhibition Meat Show at the Mendenhall Gallery in California . Influential in illustration, Ryden's finely rendered paintings bring his subjects to life, as in this exam­ ple in which Snow White is provocatively surro unded by ancient, mystical, and kitsch objects, with a distant landscape that includes a giraffe and dinosaurs. While his references to cl assica l art are clear, Ryden's eve r-present cuts of meat and references to religious iconography and scr ipture add to the mystery. For instance, th e inclusion of the number seven, referenced frequently in the Bible, is also the number of dwarves in the fair y tal e.

Courtesy of the arti st.

The term Pop Surrealism was coined by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum for its 1998 eponymous exhibit. Steven Henry Madoff in Artforum International, October 1998, described this genre as the "marriage of Surrealism's dream-laden fet ish for the body eroticized and grotesque, and Pop Art's celebration of the shallower, corrosively bright world:' Pop Surrealist imagery uses similar sources to Lowbrow, yet the result is quite different, with Pop Surrealists relying more on the subconscious (Figure 27.16).

Another and vastly different example of Pop Surrealism influence and an artist borrowing from past visual culture is Camille Rose Garcia (American, b. 1970), who in her gallery art uses nostalgic iconography that appropriates cartoon references from Walt Disney (American, 1901-1966) and Max Fleischer (Polish, 1883-1972) (Figure 27. 17). She subsequently moved into illustrating children's literature for a decidedly adult audience-a market that later expanded in the twenty­ first century.

Among the new aesthetic approaches of the late 1990s was an influx of nai've art and Illustration Brut­ derived from "art brut;' a moniker applied to fine art created outside the aesthetic and social boundaries of polite culture. These works reflected reverse standards of beauty, were visually and culturally influenced by visionary artists, and were sympathetic to the emerging DIY or "maker" movement with its interest in self­ expression, authenticity, and related self-publishing efforts of the 1980s and '90s such as alternative comics and 'zines (see Chapters 26 and 29).

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Figure 27. 17

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Camille Rose Garcia, The Magic Bottle, book cover, 2006. Acrylic on wood panel with oi l-based top coat. Garcia's self-authored graphic novel is a story about the loss of th e natural world due to ecological mistakes. Her images materially reference the visual surface of eel animations, with dr ipp ing backdrops. The fi gures are d rawn with a heavy use of black that gives the image weight. Garcia's later work uses a brighter, almost saccharine color palette and an even greater intensity of detail.

© Ca mille Rose Garcia.

Characterized by appropriation of mainstream advertising and cultural ephemera, the output of artists active in the 1990s, known as the Beautiful Losers, developed from their passion for making art as a lifestyle rather than as a profession. Certain artists of the group manipulated principles of rhetoric and design, ironically referencing familiar icons to address social issues such as consumerism, homelessness, youth despair, and urban decay.

Margaret Kilgallen (American, 1967-2001) was among the most recognizable and beloved members of the Beautiful Losers. The emotional honesty and the self-taught aspects of her work-inspired by street vernacular, folk art, and signage- had a deep influence on illustration. Ten years after her untimely death, a detail of her image of a woman in profile wearing a bathing cap with a number 10 within a star was used on a Juxtapoz cover as a companion issue to the first major institutional retrospective of street art, Art in the Streets, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2011. Other notable Losers include Geoff Mcfetridge (Canadian, b. 1971) and Barry McGee (American, b. 1966), Kilgallen's husband.

Certain artists identified as Losers found popular success through the high visibility of their political street art and were paradoxically hired by design firms and agencies to create advertising, posters, and apparel. As an artistic force, the Beautiful Losers' acceptance into the halls of mainstream commercial imagery allowed illustrators less interested in traditional aesthetic directions to get published. Many emerging practitioners emulated these self-trained artists, who were eventually epitomized in the 2008 documentary film Beautiful Losers Contemporary Art and Street Culture (and later book). Overall, their aesthetic and social attitudes helped change the public's perception of artists as social/political agents, and illustrators' sense of creating meaning.

Figure 27.19

Chapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970- Earl y 2000s 461

In other examples of stylistic diversity, Christian Northeast (British, Canadian, b. 1967) appropriates and deconstructs ephemera from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries as fodder for his elaborate collages, while Sara Fanelli (Italian, British, b. 1969) utilizes vintage ephemera, textures, and lettering that carry strong narrative potential (Figure 27.18). Fanelli simultaneously reveals and obscures the origins of the elements she uses in compositions that celebrate the beauty of found materials.

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Clayton Brothers, A Wonde1j i.tf Place to Live (In Green Pastures), cove r art , Blab 12, Fantagraphics, 2001. Mixed media acrylic on wood panel, 16 x 32': 2001. This Clayton Brothers painting appea red in the exhibition Green Pastures at La Luz de Jesus Gallery and on the cover of Blab, the cutting-edge annual edited by Monte Beauchamp that bega n in 1986. The image, wrapping the front and back cover, shows a bucolic scene fill ed with disturbing and awkward vignettes that mash up scale, mood, and iconography, evoking Surrealist se nsibiliti es. The painting coll ages tonally rendered fi gures against a background with flattened perspective.

Collection of John Purl ia.

Figure 27. 18 Sara Fanelli, Children's Books issue of the Ne w York Ti mes Book Review, cover, 2001. Fanelli 's imaginary worlds involve a collaged combi ­ nation of rai.,v and vintage materials (some scanned and enlarged) and hand work. Fanelli simul­ taneously reveals and obscu res the origins of the ele­ ments she uses in compositi ons that celebrate the beauty of found ephemera.

© 2001 Collec lion of the art ist.

462 Part V: The Evolution of lllustration in an Electroni c Age

GalleryTrends and Illustration

Made specifically for display, images illustrating alternative and subcultural themes permeated galleries such as La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles; while the magazine Juxtapoz (1994), edited by Robert Williams, helped direct and grow the California gallery movement. fuxtapoz and the galleries provided a forum for illustrators seeking more personal expression in their commissioned work. Some artists associated with the gallery or the magazine resisted the label of"illustrator" despite accepting commissions, whereas others in the illustration field found these environments to be inspirational to creative work that departed from narrative realism. The codes and messages they shared­ sometimes random, sometimes personal-sought to reject the intellectual elitism associated with modernism as well as the sometimes heavy-handedness of art direction. The diversity of subjects and resistance to codified avenues of expression, especially work previously deemed aesthetically beautiful or appealing, defined the interests of many artists working at this time. The Clayton Brothers exemplify this trend (Figure 27.19).

Figure 27.20 Barbara Nessirn, The Gift, 1984. Digital print, 24 x 30''. Nessim was one of the first illustrators to integrate digital tools into her com­ mercial assignments. Such work-created on an NEC PC 100 and printed on a JetGraphic 3000-was highly experimental. Though crude by today's digital tool standards, it shows vibrancy in color and line, and in its day appeared revolutionary and fascinating, as the digital frontier was just opening up. Commissions using Nessi m's digital approach came later as art directors warmed up to the change.

Courtesy of Barbara Ness im .

Digital Revolution

In the 1990s and 2000s, illustration expanded beyond print to include digital tools and environments, and Postmodernist thinking encouraged the crossing of social and technological boundaries to create new forms in which experimentation trumped representation. A significant outcome was that the pro-photography outlook that had dominated art direction of the 1970s and '80s gave way to a new pro-illustration era in the '90s, one that favored comingling traditional, digital, and web-based media (see Chapter 29) . This gave makers greater license to move beyond traditionally created illustration as it was understood at the time.

The opportunity to connect, reconnect, or disconnect applied art practices such as apparel or toy making with illustration expanded experimentation and redefined what it meant to be an illustrator. No longer were illustrators kept to the domain of the page or to the parameters of commissions as the impetus for illustrating. This change aided in reconfiguring the traditional client­ artist-user workflow, putting authorship into the hands of the illustrator. Practitioners could rethink where and how their work could be published, and consider how dimension, movement, and scale could be used.

As prior chapters indicate, each new technology has had its own unique impact on art production; the impact of the desktop computer and peripherals has been likened to that of moveable type (see Chapter 24, Theme Box 46, "McLuhan: Media Theory"). As the first commercially viable computer with a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse, the Apple Macintosh introduced in 1984 preceded other visually oriented platforms such as the Commodore Amiga and Microsoft Windows 1.0 (both in 1985). The Apple Macintosh sparked a change in the design field by making page layout and desktop publishing possible with bundled software: MacDraw, a vector-based drawing application, and MacPaint, a bitmap-based graphics painting program. The computer hardware and software applications had a direct effect on the image-making process of illustration, yet it wasn't until the launch of Adobe Illustrator (1986) and Adobe Photoshop (1988) that digital applications entered the "toolbox" of many illustrators. These applications offered the ability to digitally create an image; to augment one created with traditional materials; or to prepare one for transmission over the web, accelerating the delivery of a commissioned piece. Misperceptions concerning the quality of work that would come from these new tools as well as arguments about whether computers would cause the end of traditional illustration persisted, with many insisting that no one would draw again if these machines were allowed into the studio or classroom. Despite the general acceptance of digital tools in design practice, traditional media illustrators remained ambivalent or felt threatened.

Barbara Nessim (American, b. 1939) is a pioneer in using computers to generate drawings and collages as illustrations. In 1982, Nessim was invited to be artist­ in-residence at Time Inc.'s Video Information Services

Chapter 27: Print Illustration in the Postmodern World, 1970- Early 2000s 463

division (TVIS), where she was able to experiment with their computers freely (TVIS closed in 1984). The years 1986- 1996 are considered The Paint Box Era (or Phase Two) of digital art history because drawing software that did not require programming was readily available. Nessim's first digital illustration commission was for BYTE magazine (vol. 9, no. 10) in September 1984 (Figure 27.20). The strong graphic qualities of early digital tools suited Nessim's dominant linework and flat color sensibility while providing an exciting medium with which she could expand her artistic repertoire.

Braid Media Arts (1975; currently Braid Art Labs), a studio collective originally composed of Rick Berry (American, b. 1953), Darrel Anderson (American, b. 1953), and Phil Hale (American, b. 1963), became one of the most influential groups in science fiction and fantasy illustration (see Chapter 22). Within the genre of fantasy illustration, Rick Berry is known for making the first digitally "painted" book cover for author William Gibson's (American, Canadian, b. 1948) seminal 1985 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. At that time, there was no commercially available software, so unlike Nessim, who drew solely with digital tools, Berry started with a physical painting and collaborated with programmers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Machine Architectural Group to digitally enhance it. In keeping with the dark mood of the narrative, the digital effects Berry attained by working with engineers at MIT were indeed otherworldly for viewers in 1985.

While pursuing disparate aesthetic approaches and subject matter, members of Braid Media Arts frequently collaborated, working over and with each other's creations and making use of emerging digital technology as well as traditional oil paints and inks. Braid's cofounder Darrel Anderson became a 3-D digital art pioneer who created many of his own software tools, including the program GroBoTo, an application used by digital artists who seek a user-friendly way to accelerate the 3-D modeling process. As the collective "Braid;' and as individuals, Berry, Hale, and Anderson developed and hybridized forms of digital art practice that continue to powerfully influence illustration, concept art, and digital design.

Conclusion

Through the last decades of the twentieth century, illustrators gained a hitherto unknown position of authorship over their creative work. The opening up and cross-pollination of traditional markets and dissolution of discipline boundaries liberated practitioners to explore new directions in their editorial art, picture books, self-published 'zines, surface design, and concept art for films and gallery-specific works. As a result, market hybridization became inevitable. The development of conceptual editorial work, the influences of Lowbrow on notions of beauty, and the introduction of digital tools into the field had enormous impact on how illustrators make and how audiences perceive illustration.

The general availability of digital tools and devel­ opment of supporting digital environments accelerated illustrators' timelines and delivery of projects. New digital tools also challenged traditionalists' thoughts about what skills were appropriate and offered experimental avenues for those willing to explore them. Entering the twenty­ first century, questions concerning the effects of digi - tal technology, evolving aesthetics, and social concerns would appear, including use of the web and social media, which would take illustration practice into uncharted territories and create exciting possibilities within the field.

KEYTERMS

3-D modeling Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop Apple Macintosh Commodore Amiga conceptual illustration deconstruction DIY fax machine Illustration Brut Lowbrow

MacDraw MacPaint Microsoft Windows 1.0 Op-Art Op-Ed The Paint Box Era Pop Surrealism Postmodern poststructuralism structuralism