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Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Biography: Boris Artzybasheff

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Birth/Death

Born: 1899
Died: 1965

Occupation/Title

Illustrator

Bio Summary

Early Life/Family

Boris Artzybasheff was born in Kharkiv, Russia. His father, Mikhail, was an author. He fought during the Russian Revolution in the White Army.

Education/Training

Artzybasheff’s education was cut short in 1917 at the age of eighteen due to the Russian Revolution. He was separated from his parents, and came to America without the ability to speak English. He arrived with 14 cents in his pocket. He found work at an engraving shop thanks to an immigration officer. He already showed the aptitude of a great draughtsman. His mature skills opened doors to new opportunities for him.

Career Outline

His artistic career started in the 1920’s doing art deco illustrations for books. These flat and graphic illustrations were often black and white in stark contrast to his later work. In his lifetime, Boris illustrated some 50 books, of which his most well known, As I See, he wrote himself. Around 1940, he dedicated himself to commercial work, cranking out more than two hundred covers for Time, countless illustrations for Life Magazine, as well as advertisements for many companies.

Comments On Style

Perhaps one of the most flexible artists, Artzybasheff’s style ranged from flat, graphic designs to meticulously rendered compositions. He did technical drawings of machinery, portraits, whimsical illustrations for books, silly comics, and even some typography. Sometimes he worked with strong black and white shapes, while other compositions are delicately laid out with subtle colors and careful treatment of value. To credit Artzybasheff with a single style is to pigeonhole him where he does not belong. Boris Artzybasheff was a master of many very diverse styles, but they are all unmistakably his own.

Influences

Artzybasheff was strongly influenced by the then contemporary, representational surrealist movement. This shows in his anthropomorphized characters, his juxtaposition of unrelated objects, and his realistic rendering of subjects.

Personality

Anecdotes

Miscellaneous

Filmography

Honors

Artzybasheff was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1928 for illustrating Dhan Mukerji’s Gay Neck.

Bibliographic References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Artzybasheff (2006)
Heller, Stephen. The Graphic Design Reader. New York : Allworth Press, 2002.
Vadeboncoeur, Jim. Boris Artzybasheff Biography.
http://www.bpib.com/artzybas.htm (1999)
http://www.eisnermuseum.org/_artzybashoff/main.html

Contributors To This Listing

Chris Allison

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Sunday, January 30th, 2011

Biography: Ernesto Garcia Cabral (aka “Chango”)

Birth/Death
1890 Huatusco , Veracruz , Mexico
1968 Toluca , Mexico

Occupation/Title
Political Cartoonist, Poster Illustrator

Bio Summary
The Mexican Artist: Ernesto Garcia Cabral was nicknamed “El Chango”, which means “The Monkey” in Spanish. He was a talented Cartoonist and Poster Illustrator who became famous in Mexico during the 1940s and 50s, but was not well known for his work in the United States. His work was primarily done for Advertisement on Mexican Film Comedies. He was also greatly recognized for his unique comic art and political cartoons.

Early Life/Family
Ernesto Cabral, was the son of Vicente Garci’a and Aurelia Cabral. Ever Since Ernesto was a young child; he loved art and admired the great illustrators and artists of the time. He kept a scrapbook that included printed material about illustrators and caricaturists Arias Bernal, Paolo Garretto, Norman Rockwell. He later added clippings of his own caricatures to this scrapbook. Ernesto came from a Cape Verdian culture, and lived in a transplanted Cape Verde . This was a place that included Goats, chickens, ducks, geese and pigs, and all sort of garden vegetables. It was located in the country side, and he would take the trolley into the city. His father worked as a longshoreman, while his mother was the one taking care of the house and family.

Education/Training

Studied at San Carlos Art Academy in Mexico (1907)
Studied art in Paris just before WWI, and became well known there as a cartoonist (1910)

Career Outline
Cabral returned to Mexico in 1918 where he established himself as a top caricaturist and illustrator. His work often appeared on the covers of magazines such as the weekly “Revista de Revistas”. Much of his poster work was done during 1936-1956, which was considered the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. During this time he drew a number of Mexican lobby Cards, which may have been what Cabral was remembered for the most. These were the similar movie posters, but smaller. They were about 11 x 14 and depicted a scene from the film.
Cabral also painted murals, one of which can be found in Toluca , Mexico.

Comments On Style
Cabral used bold colors and dynamic designs, which he combined with cartoony caricature. His caricature was much different then most other artwork at the time, and drew audiences into theaters to see films by Mexican comedians like Cantinflas, Tin Tan and Resortes.

Influences
Arias Bernal, Paolo Garretto, Norman Rockwell

Personality
Ernesto has always been a determined artist ever since he was young, and knew how to enjoy life, and loved to spend time with his parents and brother.

Anecdotes
Cabral was a great artist recognized in Mexico , and France . In the United States he has not become well known by many, and said to be, “The Greatest Cartoonist You’ve Never Heard Of”.

Miscellaneous

Filmography
Mexican Cinema Lobby Cards:

Las Interesadas(1952) (Illustrator)
Las Locuras de Tin-Tan (1953) (Illustrator)
Rumba Caliente (1952) (Illustrator)
Tres Viudas Alegres (1953) (Illustrator)
Que Lindo Cha Cha Cha (1955) (Illustrator
Soy un golfo (1955) (Illustrator)
Resortes Cadena de Mentiras (1955) (Illustrator)
El Campeon Ciclista (1956) (Illustrator)
Resortes hora media de balazos (1957) (Illustrator)
Las Carinosas (1958) (Illustrator)

Political Line Drawings:

Tipos Que Desaparecen (1912) (Illustrator)
Semidiosa Por Rafael Diaz De Leon (1914) (Illustrator)
El Pamoso Pintor Nacho Rosas (1915) (Illustrator)
Un Poeta (1915) (Illustrator)
Lo Que Se Vende En Los Puestos (1917) (Illustrator)
Le Semanadio Nacional (1919) (Illustrator)

Honors

Cabral was 17 when he first won a scholarship to the San Carlos Art Academy

By 1910 he was drawing for popular publications and two years later received a grant to study art in Paris .

Related Links

Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr., Collecting Mexican Film Posters . Mexican Horror Cinema, www.Santostreet.com/subpages/postercollect.htm

Bibliographic References

Barrow, Randy, ImpactGraphicsPosters, August 7, 2004
www.impactgraphicsposters.com/cabral.htm

Anonymous Writer, IMDb message board, Internet Movie Database Inc.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0305573/

Anonymus Writer, Movie memorabilia, Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_memorabilia

Fernandez , Rosa M, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/lamaabri.htm

Cabral, Ernesto, Two Worlds, Cape Verde Home Page
http://www.umassd.edu/specialPrograms/caboverde/foxpoint/twoworlds.html

Contributors To This Listing
Rosa M. Fernandez – Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Reference Department

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Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Biography: Milt Stein

Birth/Death

Birth: March 15, 1921
Death: July 1977

Occupation/Title

Bio Summary

Milt Stein lived in New York for much of his life. It is unknown exactly when he started up a family, but he did so, in between working as both an animator at various studios (Fleischer Studios was one of his earliest), and working on numerous comics. After 1976, Milt was in bad health, unable to take care of himself, and tasked with taking care of both his family and his older, brain defective brother. Milt committed suicide in 1977, possibly because he could no longer take the pressure anymore.

Early Life/Family

Not much in the way of information about this. It is known that he had a family of his own, and had to take care of his older brother in his later years.

Education/Training

Not much information here as well. A lot of his later training comes from the vast amount of work he had done in various animations and on numerous comic books.

Career Outline

Milt worked at Terrytoons on and off, largely between 1941-1943. He spent a good deal of time drawing up comics for Fago’s Shop in the early 1940’s for Timely. Delving further into animation, he “worked as an assistant animator at Fleischer’s in 1943. He continued doing comics for several different comic book companies during this period, up until around the mid 1950’s. Milt was tasked with drawing features for Better Publications, such as ‘Bonny Bunny,’ ‘Coo Coo,’ ‘Goofy Comics,’ ‘Phineas the Parrot,’ Supermouse,’ ‘Tommy Turtle’ and many others. He was also a regular for Quality Comics, drawing up comics such as ‘Flatfoot Burns,’ ‘Poison Ivy,’ and ‘Inkie.’ Milt worked with several other companies, including Victory Comics on ‘Jing Pals,’ Trojan Comics on ‘Jingle Dingle,’ Marvel with ‘Silly Seal,’ ‘Ziggy Piggy,’ and ‘Wally Wolf,’ Fawcett on ‘Snortville Sneeze,’ ACG on ‘Buddy Bear,’ ‘Pat the Potato Bug,’ and Ace Periodicals on “Marmaduke Monk.’ As the 1960’s rolled around, Milt went back to animation, and worked on ‘Batfink’ for Hal Seeger, as well as ‘Return to Oz’ for Rankin-Bass.” In the late ‘60’s he worked on ‘Bowl Brummel,’ and in the mid 1970’s, ‘Tubby the Tuba,’ which was ill-fated.

Comments On Style

Milt Stein, much like many other artists, starts off with crude work. However, it was clear he was working hard on what he did. Years later, he developed the “rubber hose” style to great extents. His experience and hard work paid off, because his style came together around the period he was working on the ‘Coo Coo’ comics. He developed a more illustrational style in the late 1940’s, likely due to the large amounts of comics he had been drawing. This provided for “nicely composed landscapes, accurate use of perspective, and energetic posing.” His work in this period is considered streamlined and simplified, and managed to avoid the angularity of a lot of the “modern” styles of the time. Milt is compared to being as good as Harvey Eisenberg in this stage of his career. At Terrytoons, Milt expressively animated the girl mouse puppet in ‘Down with Cats,’ in the early 1940’s. A common sentiment is that Milt was a neglected artist, even though he was skilled.

Influences

Little is known about Milt’s influences in his younger years, but as he began to bud and grow in ability, he might have been influenced by Harvey Eisenberg, as their abilities are comparable at that period in time.

Personality

Not much information exists on this as well, but he was known to be a soft-spoken, gentle man.

Anecdotes

Supermouse’ predates ‘Mighty Mouse,’ with Milt working on both. ‘Supermouse’ was changed to ‘Mighty Mouse’ after only the first cartoon. Given that Milt was working for both companies, it is possible that he was involved in some corporate espionage. The truth may never be known, due to Milt committing suicide.

Miscellaneous

Filmography

‘Return to Oz,’ for TV, 1964; ‘Bowl Brummel,’ for TV, 1967; ‘Tubby the Tuba,’ 1975.

Honors