Monday, May 09, 2011

The Magnificent Art of Rowland B. Wilson

If, as a kid, you ever snuck a peek at your dad's Playboy magazines, you probably remember seeing the magnificent art of Rowland B. Wilson.

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Now, tear your eyes away from the nekkid ladies for a minute...

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... and take a closer look at all the wonderful stuff going on in the other parts of the picture!

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This guy could paint!

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Here are a few more Rowland B. Wilson Playboy cartoons, all courtesy of Mike Vosburg. Thanks Mike!

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RowlandWilson10

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What a wonderful sense of design and composition Wilson had...

Wilson14

... not to mention his dazzling use of colour!

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Wilson15

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* I'm away this week, but I'll still try to get a few more of Mike Vosburg's Rowland B. Wilson scans posted each day. Enjoy!

12 comments:

  1. My favorite Playboy cartoonists were Doug Sneyd and Eldon Dedini.

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  2. Amazing! Is there an art book for Rowland?

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  3. Not that I'm aware of, Shoki - but there's quite a bit of his work on the Internet. If you read about him from his obituary you'll be amazed at all the major projects he's been involved with over the years. We've all been touched by his work at some point in our lives and perhaps didn't know it.

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  4. Thanks for the reply and this post, he has a new fan in me.

    Now to go image hunting!

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  5. I remember seeing Rowland's work in the late 70's because his daughter was a classmate of mine at SVA....we were both in Harvey Kurtzman's class....thanks for posting these Leif...

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  6. Most of those old Playboy cartoonists were very skilled all-around artists in general--Dedini had a real painter's sensibility, and surprisingly, Jack Cole was magnificently adept with a brush as well.

    My personal favourites were John Dempsey, Buck Brown, Eldon Dedini, Al Stine, Jack Cole and Phil Interlandi.

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  7. Great stuff! Thanks for posting these.

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  8. I guess its like that old saying "You can't see the forrest for the trees."

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  9. An awesome talent and a wonderful, warm and funny man. He is very badly missed...

    One of his influences was Vernon Grant. You can kind of see it in some of the architecture....

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  10. Yeah, I guess I looked at some of the cartoons in Playboy.

    Wes

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  11. These are beautiful, the purple and blue in the shadows on the guys neck in that close up, the texture of the snow in the winter scene. What media is this, Gouache, Oils? They're gorgeous on so many levels and confirm how badly cartooning has eroded.

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  12. A compliment for this crazy side. Actually I knocked through chance on that and thought myself to leave behind a nice entry and many greetings.
    _____ \\\!!!///____
    .._____( ô ô )____..
    ___ooO-(_)-Ooo___

    Perhaps they view once on my homepages past! .
    trazado de recorte

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