Tags
1950's, 1960's, artist as brand, digital painting, drawing, illustration, illustrators journal, innovation, levinland, Norman Rockwell
Sometimes you come across information that stops you in your tracks. Such it is with this story about Mac Conner. He is one of the pillars of the modern world of illustration and deserves to be recognized. Here’s some video and a story from Newsworks.
McCauley “Mac” Conner worked as an illustrator during Madison Avenue’s 1950’s heyday, drawing pictures for both advertising and book covers from to romance and crime fiction.
If you’re familiar with HBO’s depiction of the world of advertising ‘Mad Men,’ then you know the era and culture Conner worked in. “Mac Conner was an original mad man in the sense that he worked in advertising and also in illustrations for magazine fiction,” said Mary Holahan, curator of illustration for the Delaware Art Museum.
But don’t call Mac Conner a commercial artist though. “I never liked the word commercial art, I was an illustrator.”
He always drew for a commercial, realist point of view. “My point of view was the way I lived, I never went in for crazy hats and stuff.”
Norman Rockwell was a big influence on his work. “Inspired by his sense of humor and plus his painting of course, he was a great painter.”
Like Rockwell, Mac even landed his work on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. But his work goes far and beyond that milestone.
The exhibit on display in Wilmington covers not just his advertising work, but also his fiction work. The work itself has an almost photographic quality to it. My favorite works were the crime noir illustrations. From the colors to the composition of the pieces these works really jumped out at me.
In fact, color was one of Mac’s trademarks. “Colors are probably the things that attract people the most. It’s very dramatic, it was an important part of his design sense,” Holahan said.
Even more than the color for me was some of the things depicted in the illustrations, gunshots, blood trickling out of a wound, smoking. Yes smoking! Remember the days of flipping through a magazine and seeing people smoking? It was everywhere, billboards and television commercials, even TV shows. It was almost jarring to see the smoking in Mac’s work as I hadn’t seen it in that context since I was a boy.
If you are of a certain age you will definitely get that sense of nostalgia from Mac’s work, but they don’t seem dated. “When we look at them now, we recognize they are from another period, but the color and the composition and all the design elements comprise works of art that speak to us today,” Holahan said.
Wilmington, Delaware is of course the home of illustration through the work of Howard Pyle and his school atteneded by famous students like Frank Schoonover and N.C. Wyeth as well as others. That’s a big reason why the museum feels it is important to host an exhibit like this. “There are compelling reasons for people to value this work because its beautiful but also because its part of a historic tradition,” Holahan said.
This exhibit also afforded me the pleasure of getting to talk to Mac about his work and life. “Certainly its the first experience that I’ve had with an artist of this age whose looking back at work that he did such a long time ago,” Mary said.
For Mac, it’s a joy to see his work front and center for a new generation to view, “Its good to know its still around, it’s good for the ego of course.”
“I look around and see what you’ve accomplished over the years. I can’t even draw a line now, I can’t even draw a line and I look at this stuff and I say how the hell did that guy do it.”
I don’t know how Mac made this body of wonderful and beautiful work, I’m just glad he did, and that I got to experience it with him, if only for a little while.
For those of you who don’t know Zaha’s work here is a reprint from Arch Daily. What is especially relevant to us as artists is how she started building her ideas in architectural masterpieces. The process is one of discovery which is relevant any form of artwork. What we do at the highest level is not paint-by-numbers, it is exploring the possibilities from all angles…literally and figuratively. I’ve found that the most I explore my tools and my ideas the stronger they become. I encourage you to do the same. Read about Zaha and strive to be great!
per·se·ver·ance
And this quote by famed writer Ray Bradbury sums it up “Kinuko Craft is a Renaissance woman. By this I mean not that she paints like the Renaissance painters, but that she is an artist for all seasons, for all kinds of subjects, and in all kinds of styles. If you will survey her works, you will find little duplication in form, color or texture. She fits herself to her subject with charming ease and yet leaves herself free to remain herself. There is an air about all of her illustrations of one who is a true connoisseur of art, wide-ranging through all the countries of the world. One cannot help but think how delightful it would be to walk into gallery of her kaleidoscopic talents.”
The other night I was walking my dogs to the park and my phone rang. I picked it up and this girlish voice with a slight accent starts talking, introducing herself as Kinuko Craft. I was dumbfounded. We started our conversation and she told me she’d be happy to give me an interview for the upcoming issue of the Illustrators Journal. We spoke for about 10 minutes while my dogs did their business occasionally staring at me wondering why I wasn’t paying attention to them. How could I explain the joy I was having connecting with one of the illustration goddesses I admired. After a few minutes I told Kinuko I’d love to call her back and that my dogs were getting restless so I should pay attention to them. She laughed and told me how much she loved her dog and she understood.
Gerald Scarfe was born in London. After a brief period at the Royal College of Art in London, he established himself as a satirical cartoonist, working for Punch magazine and Private Eye during the early sixties, and in 1967 he began a long association with the Sunday Times as their political cartoonist, also carrying out reportage assignments in Vietnam, the Middle East, India and Northern Ireland.
TV & Film Work
Now that I have your attention I’ll admit that this photo I took has nothing to do with whether Millenials are hooked on Comics or Graphic Novels. However, it is in line with what captures their eyes and appeals to their “hit me with your best shot” sensibility.
but that is probably my own snobbery and cultural elitism coming in more than anything else. I don’t quite understand how explosion and bang wow movies are still big among a good chunk of the over-30 set.
