Fred Opper is rightly regarded by those familiar with his work - including me - as one of the
pioneers of American newspaper comic strips, and he was featured briefly in the art of
the cartoon series.
But with hindsight I don't think that's enough exposure for an artist of such importance
so here's another look in greater detail.
He was born in Madison, Ohio in 1857 and at the age of only 14 he dropped out of school
to work as a printer's apprentice at the Madison Gazette.
In 1873, when he was 16 years old he moved to New York, where he studied art briefly
at the Cooper Union. He followed this with an equally brief period as assistant to the
successful illustrator Frank Beard - no relation.
A couple of years later Opper started getting work published in a handful of magazines and
in 1877 he took a job as a staff artist at the magazine Leslie's Weekly.
In 1880 he was offered a role more suited to his talents at the humour magazine Puck,
and he stayed with them for the next 18 years drawing everything from spot illustrations
to chromolithograph colour covers and double page spreads.
During his later years at Puck Opper began to explore a more economical and deliberately
scratchy pen technique.
And by 1899, when he left Puck to work for the New York Journal this had become his recognised
stylistic approach.
His comic strip Happy Hooligan first appeared in the Journal in 1900, and it ran successfully
for more than thirty years.
The strip was created in pen and ink and appeared as monochrome in some papers. But a water-coloured
version, not necessarily by Opper himself also featured in some newspapers colour supplements.
He used this success as a springboard for other comic strip ideas, which included
the two Frenchmen Alphonse and Gaston, and a prehistorically themed strip titled Our
Antediluvian Ancestors.
But it was the appearance of his comic strip And Her Name was Maude in 1904 which really
captured the public's imagination.
This was a tale of a cantankerous mule who was fond of kicking anyone who annoyed her
and got too near. And this most basic of narratives was particularly successful and was widely
syndicated for three decades.
The syndication of Opper's work wasn't just confined to the United States, and during
his lifetime he was published in European newspapers too.
And he was still writing and drawing both Maud and Happy Hooligan into his 70s and only
stopped when his eyesight began to fail and he was forced to retire in 1934.
He died 3 years later in New York at the age of 80, and he really should be better known.
Harry B. Neilson was born in Birkenhead in the Northwest of England in 1861.
He began working in 1879 as an engineer and electrician on sea-going ships. Then 8 years
later in 1887 he left to join his brother as a plantation manager in India.
But he had also been honing his skills as a writer and illustrator and two years later
in 1889 his first book, the clumsily titled The Adventures of Sam Pippins Esquire with
the Kilkenny Hunt was published.
During the decade that followed illustration grew to become his sole source of income and
by the end of the 19th century he had become well established, with a well earned reputation
for anthropomorphic animals.
In 1897 his illustration Mr Fox's Hunt Breakfast on Xmas Day was published as a a free Christmas
gift to readers of the Penny Illustrated Paper.
By this time he had returned to England but resisted the pull of London to live in Bidston,
a village close to his place of birth.
During his career as a children's illustrator he had a particularly strong working partnership
with the writer Sam Hield Hamer. This was extremely good luck for Neilson as Hamer was
also the editor at one of London's most prominent publishing houses.
The first of these collaborations was Micky Magee's Menagerie in 1897, and that was followed
by Whys and Other Whys a year later.
The success of these books seemed to signal a positive avalanche of work for Neilson,
and dozens more books were published over the next couple of decades.
Some were self-authored and some were by others including Hamer, but all of them were successful.
Virtually all his subjects were endearing anthropomorphic animals created in pen and
ink with watercolour washes.
By now he was immensely popular and well known, and in addition to his books he also illustrated
magazines and designed postcards and Christmas cards with his usual cast of animal characters.
In 1917 he returned to the hunting theme with his book The Fox's Frolic, or A Day with the
Topsy Turvy Hunt - another in a long line of lengthy titles.
Neilson remained popular as both an illustrator and a writer for children in his later years.
Unlike others who were starting to be seen as dated his approach to character and relatively
bold inking style were very much aligned with what illustrators in the rapidly expanding
comics market were creating.
Neilson's last published children's book was 1930s Mr. Skiddleywinks written by Edith Millard.
Not long after he retired and spent his final years in Bidston up to his death in 1941 when
he was 80 years old.
There's quite a lot written about Czechoslovakian František Kupka, but unfortunately most of
it focusses on his career as an artist.
He was just as successful as an illustrator and it's rather annoying that this doesn't
get anything like the same attention.
He was born in 1871 in the region known as Bohemia, which was then part of the Austro-
Hungarian empire.
His family were poor and he left school to start working at the age of only 13.
And by the time he reached 16 he was travelling around Bohemia working as a sign painter.
With the money he had earned he enrolled at at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1889
and in 1892 and followed that up with more study in Vienna.
At this time his ambition was to be an artist and he painted with an expressionistic but
largely representational style. And although he achieved reasonable success with his painting,
it wasn't enough to live on.
In 1897 he left Vienna and set out for Paris, where he believed he would stand more chance
of success.
and like his countryman and contemporary Alfonse Mucha, Kupka found it much easier to make
a good living with illustration. And so his art career was temporarily put on hold while
he became established as an illustrator and started to make considerably more money than
his painting had generated.
He achieved success early on and into the years that followed with a series of scathing
satirical drawings for the Parisian humour magazine L'Assiette Au Beurre.
the images he created were most frequently drawn straight onto lithographic stone. This
was a popular method among his contemporaries because it allowed for a wide range of textures
and linear techniques using brush or crayon and frequently both.
And once completed the artwork was print ready, making it very popular with newspapers and
magazines.
In 1904, he illustrated the final volume of La Nouvelle Géographie Universelle written
by Elisee Reclus.
And in the same year his illustrated edition of the the old testament Song of Songs was
also published with a set of exceptionally detailed art nouveau styled engravings.
In 1908 his breathtaking dramatic illustrations for Leconte de Lisle's story Les Erennyes
were published, and this was a significant triumph, both creatively and materially.
This series demonstrated his mastery of the medium of water colour, which he applied
energetically giving all these complex narrative illustrations a spontaneous and stimulating
appeal.
By 1910 his work as an artist had distanced itself from his earlier more representational
work and had evolved into increasing levels of abstraction.
This proved more successful than his earlier attempts as an artist.
and in the years that followed Kupka devoted increasing amounts of his time to his art
, while his illustration work was correspondingly sidelined.
By 1918 he had become the successful artist he had always wanted to be. He even had a
rich industrialist patron who bought most of his work, and he no longer needed to compromise
himself with commercial work
I doubt that I'm the only one who thinks that's a great pity. Give me the illustration over
the painting every time.
And he never did return to illustration but carried on painting up to his death in 1957
at the age of 86
French illustrator Georges Lepape was a significant figure in the Art Deco movement but very few
know of his existence.
He was born in 1887 in Paris and between 1908 and 1910 he studied art at the École des
Beaux Arts.
While still a student he exhibited some paintings in 1909 and there he met the massively successful
clothes designer Paul Poiret.
They quickly became friends and business associates , and in 1911 Poiret published a lavish brochure
of his designs with illustrations by Lepape.
This was a great popular and critical success and a year later he produced an equally successful
brochure for rival designer Jean Patou.
At this time the influential fashion magazine le Gazette du bon ton began publication and
the favourable attention Lepape had been getting convinced them to feature his work in the
first edition. He was regularly commissioned by them from this point onward.
These illustrations were reproduced as pochoir prints, which was a particularly labour intensive
process with individual colours applied using stencils by a team of colourists.
The process did produce extremely vivid colours but was simply not viable for magazines with
far bigger circulations.
In 1916 Vogue commissioned him to illustrate the first cover of their British edition,
and this quickly led to publication in the American Vogue too.
And in the years that followed his modernist but sensual images were published regularly
on the covers of not just vogue, but most of the major fashion and lifestyle magazines
in Europe and America.
Lepape didn't confine himself to fashion and he also created posters and press ads, and
occasional stage and costume design for theatrical productions.
In 1926, he was invited to New York by Vogue's American publisher and he spent 6 months there
and created yet more striking designs for their covers, as well as working for other
clients.
His association with fashion also led some in the world of advertising to the conclusion
that their ads would benefit from his light sophisticated touch.
throughout the later 1920s and into the 1930s Lepape remained at the forefront of his profession
on an international basis.
But as early as 1930 a less obviously art deco style and technique began to appear in
some of his magazine work.
And in 1937 his edition of the Complete Works of Alfred de Musset was published, and although
the images still utilised some formal elements typical of Art Deco they were clearly more
organic and featured more expressive tonal application of water colour.
In 1941 his illustrations for The Satyricon by Petronius were published, and confirmed
that Lepape was now more interested in the possibilities of narrative illustration.
And he followed that up with a similar treatment for the centenary edition of Stendhal's book
The Abesse de Castro in 1942.
By the time the war had ended in 1945 he was firmly established as a book illustrator,
and thats how he remained up to retirement a few years later.
He went to live in the picturesque rural location of Bonneval south of Paris, and died there
in 1971 at the age of 84.
Which wraps up this instalment and I hope I'll see you for the next.