french painter illustrator and cartoonist
jules abel favre was extremely popular in his lifetime
and he had a strong influence on many later european illustrators
so why there's so little information about him i can't imagine
he was born in lyon in 1867 and he later attended the school of fine art there
for three years he then left for paris where he attended
both the society nationale de bozar and the academy julion when he did
eventually start working it was as an artist
and he quickly established a reputation for his paintings
usually of attractive females but his natural talent for comical illustration
led him in 1895 when he was 28 years old to start submitting drawings to the
magazine luria and before long rival publications such
as la bayonet and le figaro also began commissioning him on a
regular basis and with this obviously increasing
demand for his illustrations he allowed his art career to take a back
seat lassierto burr regularly published
collections of images on a particular theme by
individual illustrators and furthers contribution les med sound was one of
the most popular the album was a collection of frequently
gruesome and sexually graphic comical cartoons
with a spectacularly poor opinion of the medical profession
february's work was always full of visual energy and its guesswork on my
part but it looks like he had more than one working method
close examination of the work suggests that he was creating his images
directly onto lithographic stone with brush and wax crayon
and the heavy texturing of some of his work supports this idea
in these cases colour would have been added as separate lithographic print
runs but there are also examples of what
looks more like pen and ink work and the colouring seems to be applied
with watercolour and pastels or crayon when war broke out in 1914 february
began using his talents to create scathing caricatures of the kaiser
many of which appeared on the cover at 47 he was too old to fight but in
addition to this dark comet work he produced many domestic propaganda
posters in his posters he left the humor alone
and adopted a suitably serious and accomplished representational approach
to his figure work and he used dramatic composition to
underline the patriotic messages many of his wartime drawings were
subsequently published in book form as days of war in 1921.
after the war he created a couple of particularly attractive commercial
posters but mostly he continued with
illustration for books and magazines in the 1920s he moved to the french
riviera town of la croix valmer but continued working as an illustrator
for his parisian clients and although he was undoubtedly slowing
down there was no loss of quality in the illustration and paintings he created
well into the 1930s able favor died in nice in 1945 at the
age of 78 and he deserves to be far better known
in the case of dutch illustrator anton peake i may well be stretching the word
unsung to its limits certainly in his home country he remains
a household name there's a museum dedicated to him and
his work is still published and merchandised
as greeting cards jigsaws and prints for framing
but the name doesn't mean much in britain and i suspect that's the case
elsewhere too
he was born in 1895 in den helder in the netherlands
and his twin brother henry would go on to have a career as a painter
he studied at the royal academy of fine arts and the biken van dragger institute
in the hague and following his graduation from the
institute he stayed on as a tutor until 1920. in the 1920s he started to build a
reputation for his book illustrations and others which appeared in the
children's magazine zone shin in 1929 he created a body of remarkable
illustrations in both black and white and colour for
steve ander horst's book of heroes the color work displayed a facility for
using watercolor which was arguably the equal of rackham
and heath robinson both of whom had influenced his style
and although the monochromes were more brutalist and drawn
in pen and ink to resemble wood cuts they were every bit as aesthetically
pleasing and expressive pique would only ever work on projects
dealing with an idealized past or ancient fantasy
and it seems he was far from comfortable with the more mechanistic aspects of
20th century life apparently he didn't even own a car a
radio or a tv but having carved out this particular
backwood looking niche for himself he continued to mine its creative
potential on any number of projects in 1938 he started producing christmas
cards for a children's charity which were
typical peak romanticized visualizations of 19th century winter scenes
and it was nostalgic illustrations such as these which led to peak's immense
popularity although by 1940 holland had been
occupied by the germans he continued to publish books his 1940
edition of the tales of the brothers grimm
followed the same format as the earlier book of heroes with atmospheric colour
pages and line-only pages in support and naturally his stylistic approach
formed a perfect partnership with the nature of the stories
in the same year he returned to the subject of mythology for a van hamel's
the garden of the gods and he created yet another series of
dazzling and frequently disturbing dramatic images
in 1943 he created the first of an eight volume edition
of the arabian nights stories and he completed the last one in 1956
to inform the visualization of these stories pique spent six weeks in north
africa sketching and making paintings of the
place and the people and this paid dividends in the
plausibility of his illustrations during world war ii he also helped the
dutch resistance by forging official documents to mislead the nazi
authorities and a great risk to himself he hid
jewish refugees in his home his brother was convicted of involvement
with the resistance and although sent to a concentration camp he managed to
survive
although he was initially reluctant to get involved between 1952 when it first
opened in 1974 peak was responsible for designing
almost every feature of the dutch fairy tale theme park
the afterlink the forest the architecture and various figures
and creatures used were from his drawings
and apparently walt disney visited it for inspiration for his own planned
theme park which was of course disneyland in 1955
and pete continued to work without once recognizing the present
up to his death in 1987 at the age of 92.
biographical information about french children's book illustrator adrienne
skur is extremely patchy and other than that
she was born in 1901 in athens the french and greek parents
there's nothing at all about her early life
in 1930 she illustrated andre marware's book the country of 36
000 wishes and a year later her own story the adventures of cottonette
was published this was popular enough to lead to another couple of books about
the same character at this time her style was based on
quite simplistic line work and relatively flat application of
watercolor washers the endearing tale of misha the little
brown bear followed the same pattern in 1933
from 1936 up to the outbreak of world war ii
she worked full-time as the editor and illustrator for the children's pages of
le figaro newspaper and her next published book wasn't until
1946. in that year a very little pig goes to
school was published and this work shows how far she'd
developed the possibilities of her early technique but only three
years later her style underwent a remarkable transformation
her edition of alice in wonderland was published in 1949
and she was no longer recognizable as the same illustrator
she began using a particularly precise combination of line and wash
and she embellished the images further with tonal textured areas of pencil
every one of the illustrations created for this book was incredibly detailed
and although broadly representational the work was far from realistic
and evoked echoes of the frozen non-naturalistic posing
of medieval religious paintings
everything she published subsequently whether in colour or monochrome used the
same mesmerizing precise technique many of the usual classics of children's
folk and fairy tales were reimagined by seaguar
including the brothers grimm pero and many of the fantasy stories written by
hans christian anderson throughout the 1950s and 1960s she was
extremely prolific and particularly so when you consider
how long it must have taken to create each one of these beautiful
exquisitely detailed images
a success continued into the 1960s with yet more books such as la rosa noel
in 1962 and hans anderson's the red shoes in 1966
she illustrated the golden bird in 1970 but this would turn out to be her last
because not long after its publication she was tragically forced to give up
work as she had become increasingly affected
by arthritis and unable to draw
adrienne segura died in 1981 at the age of 80
and it defies all reason that a talent so distinctive and overwhelmingly
attractive could now be called unsung
paulo goretto was a vital figure in the 20th century's move away from
representational illustration in both europe and america and yet he's
another virtual unknown he was born in naples in 1903 but his
family relocated to rome when his father served as an officer in the italian army
in 1921 paolo enrolled at the institute of fine arts in rome
to study architecture but he spent a lot of his time
at the famous cafe aragno where he drew caricatures of the cafe's celebrity
patrons these sketches were spotted by the
journalist oreo vigani and through this contact gueretto was
soon creating caricatures for magazines and newspapers
in his teens he had become an enthusiastic convert to the fascist
ideology of benito mussolini and at the age of 19 he was even chosen
to be one of only 33 young men who were muslim his
black-shirted personal guard but a year later in 1923 guerretto was
allowed to return to his studies now with no interest in architecture as
a career he proceeded to find work as an illustrator
and in addition to work for various magazines he soon became a popular
choice for advertising work stylistically he picked up on the
influence of the art movement futurism but its angular dynamics were tempered
with great visual humor nevertheless he was pioneering a
modernist approach few other illustrators in italy had yet woken up
to
gereto frequently used an airbrush in the creation of his distinctive
illustrations but many of his images are better
described as mixed media as he also employed crayon gouache
coloured pencil and even collage in his pictures
during the 1920s he tried a couple of times to attract the attention of the
paris jim publishing poster industry but it took until 1930
before he was able to break into that overcrowded market
so he relocated to the french capital to exploit his newfound popularity
but within only a couple of years he started to get commissions from america
and he promptly headed for new york
among other commissions he was invited to create a series of covers
for the business magazine fortune all of which featured his immaculately composed
radically abstracted images during the 1930s
these were an early challenge to the dominance of representational painting
in the american media and his humorous side including a few
caricatures of the famous and infamous was showcased in a series of stylish and
distinctive covers for the magazine vanity fair during the
same decade when more broke out in 1939 he returned
to his home country but he steadfastly and bravely refused
demands to create caricatures of the allied leaders for propaganda
purposes he was consequently branded a dissident
and deported and imprisoned in hungary until 1942
when the war was over he managed to rebuild his career he
carried on working in magazines and advertising and even branched out into
children's book illustration but despite his reputation and the
modernity of his style he couldn't recapture his previous level
of success in later life paolo garretto relocated
to monte carlo and he died there in 1989 at the age of
86 which draws this installment to a close
and i hope i'll see you next time around
you