Richard Taylor, Artist Cartoonist

*It seemed only fitting to conclude Richard Taylor's 1950 article from American Artist magazine with a couple of example's of the author's own work.

"As a parting word of advice: don't, whatever you do, make the error of imitating an established cartoonist's style. I know of no surer way to guarantee failure."


"And don't make the error, either, of trying to break in with the 'doodle' type of humorous drawing (Steinberg, Thurber, Bemelmans) unless you are as sophisticated as the artists who draw such things."


"The landscape is all cluttered up with little would-be Steinbergs who somehow miss the boat."

*Addendum: Throughout the 1950s, every issue of American Artist contained ads for the sort of "cartooning-is-easy" courses Richard Taylor admonished in his article...


... they were consistently relegated to the magazine's last page.

Roy Doty, Cartoonist Artist

*Continuing Richard Taylor's 1950 article from American Artist magazine woven in among some more wonderful Roy Doty cartoons. I say "more" because long time readers will remember that I've written about Roy on several previous occasions. Roy must surely be the most prolific advertising cartoonist of the 20th century, and I've had the distinct pleasure of corresponding with him and of actually meeting him in person two years ago at the NCS Reubens Awards in New Orleans.


Here's an example of Roy Doty's work on an extensive Life magazine ad campaign from 1953. This is just one of a series of DPS Life ads Roy drew. A new one appeared in Fortune magazine each month for several months in '53 (a single page ad from the campaign is at the end of this post).


In one of his emails to me Roy wrote, "The fifties were a great time to be in NY. In the fifties I was working for everyone, plus turning out books galore... and for three years doing one of the early kids television shows daily on Dumont, and making 40 half hour movies at the same time. EGAD!"

With typical acerbic Doty humour he continued, "I never shared a studio with anyone, never have. Always worked at home. Still do. It's a great place to work but it costs you a lot of wives."


And now, on to the next passage from Richard Taylor's article...


"The beginner almost always starts off with overly-ambitious attempts."


"He fails to realize that full page drawings in the leading magazines aren't purchased from unknowns..."


"... and that juicy advertising accounts aren't handed out to artists without a name."


"The moment he gets it through his head that the wise way is to start small and work up, concentrating on modest work at modest prices, things usually begin to happen."


"The point is that the Big Boys can't be bothered with the $5 to $50 markets (because they receive from $100 up per drawing) and so the Little Field is wide open to the beginner."


"If the talent is there..."


"... and the urge to develop is there..."


"... he won't stay in it long."


* My Roy Doty Flickr set.

Russell Patterson: Cartoonist Artist

*Continuing Richard Taylor's 1950 article from American Artist magazine woven in among some typically excellent Russell Patterson cartoons. Note the first piece - that jaw-dropping cityscape - is not typical of anything I've ever seen by Patterson, but it sure confirms what Taylor writes at the beginning of this passage!

"My advice for the would-be cartoonist is simply this: first realize that a good cartoonist is also an artist; that he requires a considerable skill in drawing - serious drawing - and must know at least the elements of perspective, figure drawing, and pictorial composition."


"That his drawings must have rhythm and "life."


"That it takes time to climb up the ladder to success."


"That all the 'easy lesson' books aren't worth the powder to blow 'em up with..."


"... and are devised by charlatans concerned only with making money."

* My Russell Patterson Flickr set.

* AND please be sure to visit Charlie Allen's Blog for the final installment of the CAWS!

John Huehnergarth, Artist Cartoonist

*Continuing Richard Taylor's 1950 article from American Artist magazine woven in among these fabulous John Huehnergarth cartoons. Note how the artist's style evolves over the course of this post: Fels Naptha ad, 1951; "Top Executive", 1960; "Live Forever", 1964.

"You can break into the minor markets (sometimes) with a half-baked, underdone sort of cartoon - but amateurish, mediocre work never, never gets into the Big Time. The woods are full of pseudo-cartoonists, grinding out things that are not much better than the average high-school student's masterpieces, doomed forever to a sub-world of third-rate pictorial humor, and without the ghost of a hope of ever climbing higher."


"The would-be cartoonist who really wants to prepare himself for a career in humor art must avoid at all cost the mistake of imagining that success can be built on little more than the urge to draw cartoons."


"He must look on the cartoonist's profession as he would on the physichian's or the lawyer's."


"No one but a fool would expect to learn enough from a "short course of easy lessons" to qualify him to hang out his shingle as a doctor or a lawyer, and any intelligent person knows that it takes several years of intense study and a lot of very hard work to get even a toe-hold in such professions."


"He must also have enormous patience and courage in the face of rejection slips, and be prepared for a long period in which his work develops after the art school days are over."


"This may sound frightening but, after all, it's reasonable."


"If humorous art were easy to break into, the country would be crawling with cartoonists as brilliant as George Price and Charles Addams, and any dope could contribute funny pictures to the leading magazines."


"Actually, the pattern of development of a good cartoonist (that is, one properly equipped to earn a decent living from his art) seems to be as follows; an overpowering urge to draw, manifesting itself at an early age;"


"... about four years of study at a good art school (or the equivalent in self-training); and anywhere from two to four years of of steady, unremitting attempts at the markets."


"Let's say six to eight years for development from rank amateur professional; not unreasonable an expenditure in time for acquiring of a skill which pays off, even for a cartoonist of pedestrian ability in terms of as much earned in a week as many men only manage to make in a month."


"The stakes are high. The reward of sustained, patient work well worth the effort."

* My John Huehnergarth Flickr set

"Cartoonists Are Artists" - Richard Taylor

"For some reason or other - perhaps because cartooning is a humorous art, and perhaps because of all the "cartooning-is-easy" catch-penny books the world has been flooded with of recent years - the general public seems to have the erroneous notion that the drawing of funny pictures is not a serious business."


"And it often comes as a distinct shock to the would-be cartoonist to learn that his work isn't eagerly snapped up by art editors the moment he decides to unveil his talent. What looks to be a cinch turns out to be a toughie."


"The bald fact of the matter is that cartoonists such as Charles Addams, George Price, Virgil Partch (ViP) and all the others worthy of their salt are excellent artists and very fine draftsmen judged by any standards. Theirs is an "art that conceals art" and behind every line stands years of development and experience. The drawing in the work of these humorists is very good drawing, and it isn't nearly as far removed from the kind of drawing Leonardo da Vinci used as a casual observer might think."

One need look no further than the remarkable piece below by Hank Ketcham to appreciate the veracity of these words Richard Taylor wrote in the October 1950 issue of American Artist magazine. Look at the two pieces at top - both of which are terrific in their own right - and see how in the space of just a couple of years Ketcham developed a remarkable sophistication that is at once expressive and admirably reductive. Ketcham says a lot with very little - and does it with grace and confidence. This is "art that conceals art"... this is very good drawing... and this is not easy to do.


Here's another from a couple of years later. I included it because it provides an easy comparison with the similar piano playing scene at top ( but also because a famous Ketcham character makes a cameo as a bit player here! )


Finally, an amusing, esoteric find: Hank Ketcham schilling for an art correspondence course in cartooning. Certainly not a "cartooning-is-easy" catch-penny book - Art Instruction Inc. has a long history of training professional illustrators and cartoonists and, like the Famous Artists School, is still in operation to this day -- but in the context of Richard Taylor's article, I thought it was kind of amusing.


This week: some great mid-century cartoon art by some of my favourite mid-century cartoonists, along with Richard Taylor's reminder that "cartoonists are artists" - and don't you forget it!

* My Hank Ketcham Flickr set

Henry C. Pitz: "illustrations... vitalized by an engaging freshness"

Whew! This week has been a whirlwind, what with having to learn the ropes of my new teaching job and adjusting to the schedule of an orderly workday! But I didn't want to let the week end and not get back to Henry C. Pitz.


When William Caxton Jr. wrote about Pitz in the Summer 1957 issue of American Artist, he talked about how Pitz had a passion for drawing. "For every drawing which has been commissioned and subsequently published - and there have been hundreds," wrote Caxton, "he has made thousands more."


"From his student days and right down to the present," wrote Caxton, "Henry Pitz has developed an amazing facility as a draughstman."

"He has worked on every surface of paper and utilized charcoal, pen, brush and ink, pencil, crayon and pastel, exploring them all."


"Many of the latter are preliminaries for illustration compositions..."


"... others are what he calls warm-up exercises, and these fill sheets and traverse everything from the human figure to animals, trees, architecture, to incidental studies, from real things to imaginary day-dreamings."


Caxton explained that early on in his career Henry Pitz had as a goal to illustrate books. "His first opportunity came in 1921," wrote William Caxton, and "during the ensuing thirty-five years Henry Pitz has illustrated more than 175 books - an average of five a year!"


"Many of these were executed in ink technique but a goodly number are in color. They range in subject from historical fiction of many periods to imaginative illustration for poetry to real life stories. Always characterized by a penetrating interpretation, the illustrations by Pitz are further vitalized by an engaging freshness, resultant from an ease of execution."


Unfortunately, because this week slipped away from me, I wasn't able to give Henry C. pitz the full treatment he deserves... but we will revisit his work on another occasion. For now, I like this conclusion to his biography on askart.com, written by his widow, Mary "Molly" Wheeler Wood Pitz, who tells us Pitz "was working on a painting the day before he died in his eighty first year, November 26, 1976, revered and beloved by his many friends and family."


* Hopefully next week I'll be settled into a routine and we can get back to a daily schedule!

* For now, be sure to visit Charlie Allen's Blog for the second-to-last CAWS, according to what Charlie tells me.

* Also, a new post is up at Storyboard Central showcasing the work of a legendary duo of Toronto marker renderers who had a studio called "Sphere".

* And finally, be sure to take a look at my post on Drawn! about the impending auction of autographed children's books, sketchbooks, and hand-drawn mock-ups by Evaline Ness, who was featured here recently during a week on female illustrators of the 1950's.

* My Henry C. Pitz Flickr set.

Henry C. Pitz: The Versatile Illustrator

William Caxton Jr. wrote an article in the Summer 1957 issue of American Artist magazine about Henry C. Pitz. Pitz wasn't the cover artist of that issue, but I found another summer issue, from 1952, with a Pitz cover, so I've placed it at the top of this post for... decorum.


"The world of art," wrote Caxton, "is studded with artists whom we must recognize for their exceptional ability to practice in allied, or even divergent, fields with marked success in each. At random, Rubens was also a professional diplomat; Da Vinci was scientist and engineer; Michaelangelo was architect, sculptor, painter, and poet; and in our own country, three celebrated examples - John James Audobon, ornithologist and painter; Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and portraitist; Joseph Pennell, noted etcher and writer."

"While the illustrations that accompany this article belong in the field of graphics, and therefore could be duplicated in quality from the hands of other talented artists, they do not, in themselves, represent the versatility which the writer claims for his subject. Many-sidedness can be a fetish of the amateur, but on the professional level it is rare to the point of being a virtue."


"When an artist becomes a successful teacher there are those who say that he teaches at the expense of his own practice, forgetting that since time immemorial even the masters were originally students of teachers. What Paucity there might have been had not Duveneck, Eakins, Henri, and Pyle - and others of like distinction - been willing to teach. And when in addition to his teaching such an artist practices painting, drawing, and printmaking in sufficient volume to make his mark in national competition, garnering medals and prizes, year after year, not only do we look up to such a one with respect, but imagine the authoritative effect of such a career in his classroom."


"But this is not all. The same artist has executive ability. He heads a large department of graphics, directing the teaching of other artists; he writes books and articles on art; lectures throughout the country; and in between times - and this is the wonder - illustrates books and magazines in several media and for such a variety of subjects that there are but few important publishers who have not used his services."


"Perhaps it has taken quite a space before naming Henry C. Pitz as the man and artist I have briefly described, but then it is consistently true that it is only after twenty five years of watching and evaluating his career that I could be as sure of his versatility as I am."


When I read William Caxton's introduction to the career of Henry C. Pitz, I knew that this week was the right time to present it here on the Today's Inspiration blog. It provided me with the ideal backdrop to make a public announcement about my own circumstances...


Because this week, after twenty-plus years as a full-time freelance illustrator, I began the next phase of my career as a graphic arts professional. I have taken a full time position as a "Professor of Graphic Arts" in the Graphic Design program at Mohawk College here in Hamilton.


I am very excited about this outstanding opportunity to test myself with the new challenges that teaching will present, and its hugely inspiring to think I'll be following in the footsteps of illustrators like Henry C. Pitz.

More importantly, I'm forever indebted and inspired by those who went to bat for me when I first decided to apply for this position. I wanted to publicly acknowledge and thank Murray Tinkelman, Neil Shapiro, Melanie Reim, Don Kilpatrick, Chuck Pyle, David Apatoff and Jaleen Grove. When asked for their help, these remarkable people overwhelmed me with their generous and immediate assistance. To each of them, my heartfelt thanks.


As I embark on this next phase of my career this blog will remain key to what I have planned for myself, for my students and for all of you who care to join me on the journey. It is my sincere hope that I am one day worthy of being considered a "versatile illustrator" of the sort that Henry C. Pitz was - and that those I have just mentioned above are.

Here's to "practices in allied, or even divergent, fields... with marked success in each!"

* My Henry C. Pitz Flickr set