Illustrators #23 (Autumn 2018)

The latest issue of Illustrators opens with a lengthy study of the work of N. C. Wyeth, one of the most influential American painters of his day, famous for his illustrations of classic novels. Over the years he produced over 3,000 paintings for some 112 books. He illustrated 25 of the Scribner Classics line, including the debut novel Treasure Island, which were best-sellers.

Newell Convers Wyeth was born in Needham, Massachusetts, on 22 October 1882, his talent for art encouraged by his mother, who was acquainted with literary giants of the day, Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He grew up on the family farm and would have become a farmer had he not been fascinated by drawing all the objects around him. By the age of 12, Wyeth was painting superb watercolours, and from an early age he attended the Mechanics Arts School, the Massachusetts Normal Arts School, and the Eric Paper School of Art. At the latter he learned illustration under George Loftus Noyes and Charles W. Reed.

Wyeth was accepted at Howard Pyle’s School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1902 where his exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student. Pyle is considered the father of American illustration and emphasised visiting historical sites and the use of props and costumes, designed to stimulate the imagination as well as make the action and costumes appear authentic.

Wyeth’s first professional commission – a bucking bronco – appeared on the cover of Saturday Evening Post on 21 February 1903. When the paper commissioned him to illustrated a Western story, Pyle urged Wyeth to head out to the Wild West. In Colorado, Wyeth worked alongside professional cowboys, doing chores around the ranch and rounding up cattle. Despite breaking a leg, he visited Native American sites and worked as a mail courier after his money was stolen. A second trip two years later resulted in the beginnings of a collection of authentic artefacts.

His illustrations included paintings of rural life, book illustrations that encompassed countless topics and magazine illustrations for periodicals, including Century, Harper’s, Ladies Home Journal, McClure’s, Outing, The Popular Magazine and Scribner’s. He also drew posters, calendars and advertising for clients including Lucky Strike and Coca-Cola, and painted murals and portraits.

His enormous success did not make him particularly happy and he complained bitterly about the commercialism on which he was dependent, yet it allowed him to buy an old captain’s house in Port Clyde, Maine, in the 1930s where he took his family for holidays and where he painted seascapes. In 1941 he was elected to the National Academy.

Wyeth's life ended in tragedy on 19 October 1945, aged 62. It was his habit to take his 3-year-old grandson, Newell (the son of his youngest child, Nathaniel), on his morning errands and the two were together in Wyeth's Ford Station Wagon when it stalled on a  railway crossing. They were both killed instantly when the car was struck by a freight train.

Virgil Finlay was one of the Gods of pulp magazine illustration, famous for his work in the science fiction and horror magazines  that he first started reading in the late 1920s, while in his early teens. Influenced by rench artist Gustave Dore, Finlay replicated the look of old engravings by the use of cross-hatching and strippling to give tone and depth to his artwork. Finlay was slow and meticulous, but the end results, even printed on rough, pulp paper, made his illustrations stand out.

His earliest work appeared in Weird Tales in 1935, when Finlay was 21, and he was associated with the magazine until its demise in 1954. He was a staff illustrator on The American Weekly in 1938-43 and, after serving in the South West Pacific during the Second World War, resumed his artistic career as a freelancer in 1946. Much of his subsequent work appeared in science fiction magazines, although that began to dry up in the 1960s, when Finlay tried his hand at abstract painting, although with no great success. Although he died in 1971, his work is still greatly admired in the SF and horror community, and a number of collections have celebrated his artistic talent.

Bobby Chiu is probably best known for his online sketching and schooling groups and as the creator of Niko and the Sword of Light. Chiu was learning computer-based illustration techniques whilst working in the warehouse at Thinkway Toys when he was given an opportunity to help out with some artwork. Only in his teens, he was taken on and subsequently worked on designs for a range of licensed characters and creating illustrations of cute monsters as well as the animated web comic adventures of Niko, a young boy trying to return light to his land, which has been consumed by darkness. A pilot in 2015 led Amazon to produce a 13-episode animated series, shown in 2017, with a second season is in the works.

Finally, this issue uncovers some of the work drawn for Finding Out by Anne and Janet Grahame Johnstone. In the early 1960s, they illustrated some classic tales, ranging from Greek myths to Arthurian legends, the work gathered together in various books penned by Roger Lancelyn Green.

Whatever your tastes in artwork, there will be something here for you. For more information on Illustrators and back issues, visit the Book Palace website, where you can also find details of their online editions, and news of upcoming issues. Issue 24 is to be a French movie poster issue celebrating the work of René Ferracci, Boris Grinsson, Clément Hurel, Jean Mascii, Michael Landi, Roger Soubie, Rojac, Jacques Bonneaud, René Peron, et al.