Thursday, September 4, 2008

Dean Cornwell Article

The new issue of Illustration Magazine has a cover feature on American illustrator Dean Cornwell (1892-1960). The article includes over 40 large color illustrations, including some preliminary work and rarely seen paintings.

The story by David Hornung follows Cornwell’s career from his early days a student of Harvey Dunn and Frank Brangwyn to his later mural work from the LA Public Library.

His style evolved from the simple and dynamic shapewelding of his early magazine work to the ornate complexity of his later compositions and his advertising illustration, above.

This detail shows his characteristic juicy and planar handling of form.

The issue also includes a feature on the illustrator Murray Tinkleman and an excerpt on Constantin Alajalov from Fred Taraba’s upcoming book Masters of American Illustration: 41 Illustrators and How They Work.

You can order a copy of Illustration 23 at Bud’s Art Books, which also has other back issues of Illustration Magazine available.
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Illustration Magazine website, link.
War Art Archives (Have a Coke), link.
Thanks to Free Parking Flickr archives on Cornwell, link.
Bud’s Art Books, link.

8 comments:

Erik Bongers said...

I bought a copy of "Illustration" here in an Antwerp comic book store.
I was stunned by mainly one drawing, a portrait of Andrew Wyeth by C.F.Payne. (and of course the other Payne drawings as well).

This issue looks nice too.
I'll go and check out that magazine shelf one of these days.

Shane White said...

WOOOOHOOO!

I haven't gotten my copy yet...joyjoy. :)

One of my favorite parts about visiting Illustration House in NYC is checking if they've got Cornwell's up for auction. They're gorgeous to look at as you can see the depth of paint rise off the canvas.

Mead Schaeffer, a protege of Cornwell's was no slouch either.

=s=

Charley Parker said...

Great to know. Thanks!

Some more Cornwell resources:
Cornwell's murals, and Cornwell posts on Today's Inspiration
Leif Peng's Flickr set
Murals on 54, with images
Nice post with images on Conceptart.org (scroll down)
Cornwell on American Art Archives
Bio and images on National Museum of American Illustration
Bio on Childs Gallery
Article on Lines and Colors

Unknown said...

Murray Tinkelman was my instructor at Syracuse as well as grad school at FIT. He is an expert in the history of Illustration, and especially Dean Cornwell. If you ever have an opportunity to hear him lecture I recommend it. Or if you hang out at the Society of Illustrators enough you're bound to run into him. If you see a guy who looks like George Carlin say hello.

James Gurney said...

Thanks, everybody, for the interesting sidelights you've shed on Cornwell and Illustration magazine. Charley, those links are really helpful. Thanks for sharing them.

Anonymous said...

Just when I think I'm done buying art books for a while >__<. Can't wait to get my Leyendecker book WOO!

Shawn Escott said...

This looks awesome! He was a master. The Boca Raton museum in FL has one of his paintings of Benjamin Franklin and the printing press. Sometimes I just go and stand in front of it and marvel. It's great to see all the pencil lines showing through the work.

ricardo said...

Thank you for the heads up on Taraba's book. I think it might be a quite valuable acquisition.