What James R. Bingham was to The Saturday Evening Post's Perry Mason serials, Thornton Utz was to The American Magazine's Nero Wolfe Mystery feature.
Once again, we see how Utz was able to adapt his style to the subject matter, giving it a distinctly noir-ish, dime novel quality so appropriate to the material.
I'm particularly fond of this last piece, where Utz really gets rough with the paint and begins to display a slight stylization reminiscent of some work Alex Ross did several years later when Collier's magazine picked up the Nero Wolfe series.
These illustrations are well worth examining in greater detail. Take a look at them in my Thornton Utz Flickr set.
I'm a huge huge Nero Wolfe fan -- the artwork is beautiful -- thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, john -- thanks for commenting! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnother Nero Wolfe fan weighing in :-) with kudos for this post.
ReplyDeleteTina
Thanks, Tina :-)
ReplyDelete