We've seen a wide variety of small spots this week that demonstrate just how conscientious mid-century illustrators were about doing their best work - despite knowing that work would be printed at a size far too small to be properly appreciated with the naked eye.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the remarkable full colour paintings done for many mid-'50s magazine ads. These miniature scenes were reproduced at about the size of a postage stamp...
... but just look at the effort that went into rendering them.
Here's another ad - several small full colour spots done in a somewhat different technique...
... but still remarkably detailed for such a small canvas.
Who were the artists who created such proficient work? They were probably among the ranks of talented but largely anonymous illustrators like Charlie Allen, who did many fully painted ads of this type for Kaiser Aluminum.
Charlie described these assignments (which he painted in gouache at just two or three times up) as being "considered by agencies and by illustrators as a real 'plum' account on which to work."
"[The client] seemed to me remarkably relaxed about product details," wrote Charlie. "The scenes and product details were very much left to the artist to create."
For Charlie, not only were these fun and lucrative assignments, they provided a young west coast artist more used to working on regional assignments the rare opportunity of sharing the stage with his 'celebrity' peers because Kaiser's ads ran in wide circulation national magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek, Time, etc.
I'll just bet Charlie got a kick from seeing his signature on those ads in those publications. Although, of course, being ever the humble practitioner of his art, you'd hardly know the work was signed if you didn't have our ability to blow up those tiny panels to a decent size. (See it in the bottom RH corner of the image above?)
Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Showing posts with label Small Spots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small Spots. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
In Praise of the Little Things, Part 3
Yesterday we saw some tiny black & white battle scenes, originally published at just one by two inches. Today let's look at some more miniature illustrations - this time in colour and in what I'll describe broadly as a variety of "1950s storybook styles."
First, here are five vignettes from a 1952 ad for M&Ms, also published at about one by two inches.
Here's a 1957 ad for Dutch Boy Paints with some terrific little stylized spots...
A 1950s ad for Telechron Timers...
One of a series of ads by an artist named Calle (I have another one here). Does anyone know any more about him/her?
Finally, a sweet little cartoony spot signed "W. Fitch" from this 1957 Dial soap ad...
*If mid-century artwork of this type is your cup of tea, I have two sets on Flickr you'll want to explore:
Ads with Story Book Styles and Ads with Cartoon Elements
Enjoy!
First, here are five vignettes from a 1952 ad for M&Ms, also published at about one by two inches.
Here's a 1957 ad for Dutch Boy Paints with some terrific little stylized spots...
A 1950s ad for Telechron Timers...
One of a series of ads by an artist named Calle (I have another one here). Does anyone know any more about him/her?
Finally, a sweet little cartoony spot signed "W. Fitch" from this 1957 Dial soap ad...
*If mid-century artwork of this type is your cup of tea, I have two sets on Flickr you'll want to explore:
Ads with Story Book Styles and Ads with Cartoon Elements
Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
In Praise of the Little Things, Part 2
Just look at the detailed inking techniques and compositional complexity of this battle scene.
So much effort put into something that appeared on the printed page at only one by two inches!
These tiny illustrations were part of the page design...
... of a series of U.S. Defense Bonds ads that ran in various mainstream magazines in 1952.
I can tell you from personal experience that, when viewed with the naked eye, the effort this talented but uncredited artist put into rendering these scans in such detail is impossible to really appreciate without a magnifying glass.
Thanks to our 21st century scanner technology...
... we can enjoy them closer to the size at which they were probably created.
(Or even larger - click the images to go to my Flickr archives and see them twice up).
So much effort put into something that appeared on the printed page at only one by two inches!
These tiny illustrations were part of the page design...
... of a series of U.S. Defense Bonds ads that ran in various mainstream magazines in 1952.
I can tell you from personal experience that, when viewed with the naked eye, the effort this talented but uncredited artist put into rendering these scans in such detail is impossible to really appreciate without a magnifying glass.
Thanks to our 21st century scanner technology...
... we can enjoy them closer to the size at which they were probably created.
(Or even larger - click the images to go to my Flickr archives and see them twice up).
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