Monday, November 26, 2007

Jon Whitcomb: Cosmopolitan

Al Parker might have been a favourite of Cosmopolitan's editors for story illustrations... but Jon Whitcomb was the magazine's true 'cosmopolitan'.


For several years during the 1950's, Whitcomb had such a consistent presence in Cosmo, his work appeared in virtually every issue. First he regularly contributed Jon Whitcomb's Page in the early 50's, then he began doing these expanded, fully illustrated articles on (it would seem) whatever struck his fancy.


This week, while I put the finishing touches on a top secret Today's Inspiration project (which I'll announce next week), I'm going to let Jon Whitcomb do the talking. No doubt his fashion tips and 'man-about-town' advice will make us all feel a little more cosmopolitan!

These images at full size: my Jon Whitcomb Flickr set.

4 comments:

  1. Fascinating decision for Whitcomb to shroud his fashion girls' heads in shadow. Since the only person he had to answer to was Cosmo's art director and not a hard-nose product client, it's great he was able to do something artistic like that.

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  2. Beatiful girls...
    I’ve seen when was a child, some grandma’s cosmopolitan magazines with that kind of illustrations.
    Regards

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  3. Amazing how much sensuality an illustration can capture, isn't it?
    Under the deft hand of a real artist, that is. Each one of these damsels is
    a knock-out. Today's illustrators could learn so much studying these pieces.

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  4. These are really nice. Geez-- does anybody even DO fashion illustration any more? If so, where would you see it? I know that there used to be a lot in the newspaper, but I get all my news online and have not seen a paper in quite a while. I also don't look at women's magazines, so I wouldn't know about that either.

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