Spanish illustrator Manuel Mayol was born in Jerez in 1865
and that's all that's recorded about him until 1888 when he sailed to Argentina at the age of 23.
And then it's another 10 years of invisibility until 1898 when he first published the humour
magazine Caras y Caretas in Buenos Aires with his business partner Eusaquio Pellicer.
And its from this magazine that all the images used here are taken.
The first issue was entirely illustrated by Mayol, and Pellicer handled the writing.
Obviously Mayol couldn't continue to illustrate every page of every edition
so several other cartoonists and illustrators were quickly drafted in.
Nevertheless he remained at the centre of the magazine's success,
contributing at least a couple of illustrations to every issue,
and more often than not it was one of his meticulous line and wash caricatures on the cover.
In terms of his technique Mayol usually - but
not always - favoured the large head/small body technique used by many caricaturists.
His line work was nothing less than remarkable for its precision and complexity,
and the visual evidence suggests he used both brush and pen
to create the widest possible range strokes for outlines, shading and modelling.
As with many of his contemporaries in Europe and America at that time
washes of transparent colour were added to what was effectively an already finished illustration.
Caras y Caretas - which translates into English as Faces and Masks - soon
became very popular among the urban sophisticated set in Buenos Aires.
And with ever rising circulation figures its
reputation grew throughout the Spanish speaking countries in Latin America.
Of course to modern viewers especially outside Argentina
the people caricatured and most of the scenes depicted mean nothing.
But although we don't know the specifics of the targets of the satire
Mayol's use of visual metaphors still rings true.
After a decade of success in Buenos Aires in 1909 he travelled back to Cadiz with his
wife and daughter, and continued to work there, although not as prolifically as previously.
But in 1912 a serious problem arose with Caras y Caretas.
A group of the magazine's former employees had quit and created a
rival magazine named after the leader of the group, the writer Fray Mocho.
They had taken quite a few of the regular advertisers with them,
leaving Caras y Caretas in a financially vulnerable position.
Mayol had no choice but to return however reluctantly to Buenos Aires
to assist in trying to save the magazine.
He succeeded in his mission and resumed his
role as the magazine's leading illustrator for another 6 years.
But Mayol had been suffering from respiratory problems for some time,
made worse by his serious nicotine habit, and although he was only 54
he was forced to return permanently to Cadiz to take early retirement in 1919.
Despite the doctor's warnings he continued to smoke like there was no tomorrow.
And in the end there was no tomorrow, and Manuel Mayol died in Cadiz in 1929 at the age of 64.
Patten Wilson was born in Shropshire, England in 1869
and in 1887 he enrolled at Kidderminster School of Art at the age of 18.
But a year later he left the course,
having come to the conclusion he could teach himself rather better than they could.
And he set about devouring and obsessively copying everything he could by the early
greats of the Renaissance, particularly the wood engravings of Albrecht Durer.
Meanwhile he held down a number of menial jobs to pay his way
until he had developed his skills to his own satisfaction.
In 1894 he met the publisher John Lane, who was impressed enough with Wilson's work
to immediately commission him to illustrate the Miracle Plays, written by Katherine Tynan Hinkson.
It was ideal material for Wilson's style, and the series of black and
white pen and ink drawings he created for the book were very well received.
Luckily for Wilson, Lane was also the editor of the Yellow Book,
a quarterly anthology of written and illustrated arts, whose art editor was Aubrey Beardsley.
He was invited to submit drawings for publication,
and all his contributions were enthusiastically accepted
and the Yellow book published a dozen of his illustrations in rapid succession.
Publication in the Yellow Book was at the time considered prestigious,
and his appearance there was very much a promotional shot in the arm for Wilson.
And once he had been noticed it didn't take long before other
magazines began to commission him to produce similar images for them.
In 1898 he was given his most prestigious commission to date,
which was to illustrate the complete works of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
And the series of dramatic line images he created was a particularly
good match for the generally doom laden tone of Coleridge's verse.
By this point Wilson was being kept very busy with more line drawings in his mock-woodcut style.
It was almost exclusively dramatic, historical and mythological work
and he was becoming rather typecast in that role.
In 1903 his edition of Charles Dickens' A Child’s History of England was published
and it featured a colour illustration on the cover.
And from then onward colour became a more regular although never dominant feature of his output.
Two years later he broke free from his typecasting with the frivolous
children's book A Trip to Santa Land written by Vivien Philips.
And there were one or two other less obvious commissions during
the rest of the decade and throughout the next.
In 1909 he created illustrations for the book Field and Woodland Plants
and among them was a very agreeable set of watercolour botanical illustrations.
And in 1913 his more frivolous side was in
evidence again in the story of Phyllis in Piskie-Land .
And unfortunately, although it's known he continued to be published
even if much less prolifically up to his death at the age of 65 in 1934,
there's absolutely no visual evidence I can find from his later career.
Since then it seems that his memory has faded and very few are now aware
of his contribution to British book illustration.
Pierre Lissac was born in 1878 in Limoges in the centre of France
and was admitted into the Paris School of Fine Arts at the age of 18 in 1897.
Just for good measure he also studied at the Academy Julienne
and he would have graduated some time around 1902.
But it's several years later in 1910 when publication dates
reveal his work had begun to appear in several Parisian humour magazines,
for some reason using the pseudonyms Pierlis and occasionally Kiss.
Among these highly regarded magazines were
L'Assiette au beurre, Le Rire , Fantasio,and La Baïonnette, so it's more than likely he had been
working to establish himself before this date, even if no verifiable examples exist.
From the 1920s onward he also began illustrating novels such as La Fête
Nocturne by Edmond Jaloux.
These images were created as woodcuts and bore no resemblance to his frivolous line and
wash magazine illustrations.
So it seems he wanted this book, and those that followed in the coming years to be more an
extension of his work as an artist, where he exhibited and sold many limited edition prints to
collectors. But running parallel to what might be termed
his more serious work he continued to create any number of comic and sexually suggestive
illustrations, including some highly absorbing crowd
scenes as double page spreads for La Vie Parisienne in particular.
And in 1929 he also created the first in what would become a popular series of books featuring
the adventures of his characters Luce and Colas.
Throughout the 30s he created more books in colour including child-friendly editions of
Gulliver's Travels, and a similar brightly coloured edition of the tale of Don Quixote.
He used the same technique great success for the not so child friendly erotic story
Les Chansons de Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs. His treatment of the story
wasn't particularly explicit but it was definitely one for the grown-ups.
In 1939 when the war began Lissac got out of Paris before the Germans invaded
and he left for Morocco, where he painted watercolours of the country and its inhabitants.
Once the war had ended he returned to France but continued to successfully
pursue his painting and printmaking, and he only created occasional rather lukewarm illustration
for more children's editions of classics.
These were no match for his earlier achievements, whether serious or frivolous,
and Pierre Lissac died 7 years later in 1955 at the age of 77.
British illustrator, designer and artist Frederick Gregory Brown
featured briefly in the video I made a while back about London Underground posters,
but I'm of the opinion that he deserves more detailed examination.
He was one of the most influential poster artists in 20th century Britain, but ironically his
memory has come to be rather overshadowed by the later illustrators he had inspired.
He was born in London in 1884, the son of an art teacher and a painter.
Which makes it all the more peculiar that he was apprenticed in his teens as a metal worker.
After a brief unsuccessful stab at sculpting in metal
he changed direction towards painting, graphics and illustration.
Whether he had any formal art education to help in his ambitions doesn't seem to be recorded.
As with the others in this video there's a biographical blank until 1915,
when he created this unremarkable war propaganda poster. By this time he was already 31 years old.
But in the same year his first poster for the publicity department of the
London Underground Railway appeared, and it would lead to a very long line
of other posters for the Underground and the other divisions of London Transport.
Although the levels of representation in any given poster varied throughout his career
they were invariably exercises in the use of dramatic composition,
simplified shapes and entirely non-representational colour.
In the following year he created another series, this time promoting bus journeys
to London's outlying suburbs using colour and light more suggestive of the French Riviera.
At the time Brown was one of a very small group who were pushing
hard at the boundaries and principles of reduction and abstraction in their posters.
Initially this modern non-naturalistic approach attracted a largely negative
response from critics and a sceptical public who were simply not yet ready
for this departure from the representational norm.
But naturally enough as time went on resistance gave way and before long modernism became the rule
rather than the exception in British illustration.
Soon enough it would be called Art Deco and considered the height of sophistication.
Throughout the 1920s and well into the 1930s Brown continued to be popular with London Transport,
and the public profile it gave him led to other clients taking an interest.
Apparently he considered most art directors to be blockheaded philistines
and didn't particularly bother to conceal his contempt.
But despite his reputation as a prickly individual he was offered
advertising poster work and some book cover design away from his safe haven.
He was particularly successful as a textile designer, and his ultra
modern Art Deco fabrics were very popular with fashionable well-heeled clients.
Regarding his use of media I found an auction site selling some of Brown's original paintings
which declares them to be created in gouache so it seems highly likely from both this evidence
and his application of colour that it was also used in the creation of his commercial work.
From the mid 1930s onward his style became noticeably more representational
and seemed to indicate a move away from the more formal geometric work of the 1920s.
Where he might have ultimately headed we'll never know because unfortunately he was yet
another who didn't overstay his welcome and he died at the age of only 57 in 1941.
That's it for now and I hope to see again next time round.