[SuperScrounge]

London As Seen By Charles Dana Gibson

Text is so small it's almost unreadable. At a guess I'd say this was not scanned at more than 150 dpi. After a few pages I gave up trying to read the text. Which is a pity as I like to know the thoughts behind an artist's drawings. Those little tidbits of info that you might miss or overlook just viewing the art.

Small wigs and big fees. *snicker*

Ah, at page 22 the scanner seems to have reset his device to a higher dpi and I can read the text easier.

Aaaaand page 29 the quality drops again.

Page 37 back up! (Sounds like I'm reading the Stock Market ticker.) 41 down. 46 up. 59 down.

Well, at least the art is great to look at.

[SuperScrounge]

Phil May's Gutter-Snipes

This was nice. Easy to read, good drawings, funny gags.

I think I first heard of Phil May in a book about the Yellow Kid, so it's interesting to consider his work in comparison to what Outcault was doing. May seems to be more spontaneous with his work here, presumably sketched on the street, whereas Outcault was more planned out. Of course I'd to have to see more May work, but certainly an interesting artist to look at.

[SuperScrounge]

A Gallery of Girls

Lovely work, although I wish the smaller pics were bigger.

Very enjoyable, amusing captions.

[SuperScrounge]

Funny thing about Phil May. He was renowned for his offhand, effortless sketch style. Many artists admired him because his was the opposite of the detailed, elaborately-rendered work that dominated British cartoons (i.e., Punch) at the time. BUT...several sources report that May achieved that effortless style by putting in a lot of effort! He'd draw a cartoon, ink it, trace it off omitting what he considered unnecessary detail, ink it again, and repeat until he was convinced there was nothing more he could leave out. I imagine having redrawn the subject so many times meant that by the time he was satisfied he could dash off the lines.

Wow! Amazing.

GUTTERSNIPES was part of my political awakening. Remember OLIVER! in the late 60’s or so? Work houses? Street gangs of kids? Artful Dodger? I kept asking how they finally got RID of workhouses, and GUTTERSNIPES was shown to me.
May, it was explained to me, was a conservative guy with unpleasant racial views. He probably thought sympathetic public response to child poverty was desirable to legislation or organized labor.
The punch line was that only unions and labour laws accomplished the job.

Didn't Sinclair Lewis think one of his books (The Jungle?) would upset the public about the food industry and public pressure would force change, but instead politicians took advantage of the outrage to seize power over the food industry with laws and the FDA?

The distinction between those who feel you should only do what is right because it's right and those who say, "Well, there ain't no law against it..."

[The Australian Panther]

One thing that both the Phil May and Charles Dana Gibson works have in common, is that they are both a form of storytelling.
We forget today, that it took a while for printers to move from woodcuts to actually being able to print photographs. So Illustrations weren't not just pictures, they were also records and therefore serve as commentary.

that movement that packed kids off over here to Canada sent my whole family over.

Interesting that we got onto that subject! I'm always pleasantly surprised as to where these dialogues end up.
This happened in Australia and probably New Zealand as well and in many cases there was not a happy ending.
I wish I hadn't included the Coles Phillips work, not because it isn't stunning, but the other two work well together and Coles Phillps' work is something quite different.
A Note. His faces are so individual and distinctive that he must have been doing what amounts to portraits of a number of models and acquaintances     
Somebody asked what style his work was. I can't give it a name, but there are elements of Art Deco there, I think, and of what they called 'Pop Art' in the 60's. I was reminded of the Beatles Portraits that
Richard Avedon did for LOOK magazine.
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/192458584045544412/
This is what is important about Phil May.

May was a major influence on the style of cartoon drawing in the 20th century. In 1918, Percy Bradshaw wrote in The Art of the Illustrator that May "surely gave more magic to a single line than any draftsman who has ever lived, and he was unquestionably the creator of the simplified technique of modern humorous drawing".May's work was a major influence on David Low. Low recalled that his early aspirations were dampened when he saw the "intricate technical quality" of most Punch cartoons, which seemed too difficult to emulate: "But then I came on Phil May, who combined quality with apparent facility ... Once having discovered Phil May I never let him go."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_May_%28caricaturist%29
This has been said of Phil May;-

His overflowing sense of fun, his genuine sympathy with his subjects, and his kindly wit were on a par with his artistic ability.

And this has been said of of Charles Dana Gibson

From the start, Gibson's interests were in portraying the social set rather than political figures, and his audience enjoyed the manner in which he poked fun at high society characters with their idiosyncrasies. 

https://americanillustration.org/project/charles-dana-gibson/

Looking at May and Gibson's work together has made me appreciate something.
In both mens work we are looking at two different social strata of London.
Gibson.   
If I look, for example at 'On Bond Street', 'A first Night' 'Church Parade' or the women in 'Waiting' I don't see a single smile, nor does anybody appear to be relaxed, having fun, enjoying life. They are dressed to the nines and none of them stands out as feeling free enough to express their individuality.
This is what the artist saw and decided to portray visually.
May.
When I look at Phil Mays work, the clothes indicate poverty but I see life, creativity, energy.
I see people enjoying each others company, I see older children caring for younger children.
I see children creatively making something out of nothing to entertain themselves. 
Hell, I believe I see the triumph of the human spirit.
'Don't you never treat yourself to no luxuries, Guvner?' and several others,
Put the two strata together and makes the divide blatantly obvious.
I asked myself, who would I rather be, one of Gibson's Toffs or one of May's Ragamuffins?
There is no contest. I think, in modern terms, I have always been a ragamuffin anyway.
Once again, I have come away from a Reading Group selection, richer than when I started.
On to the next one.               






   

[Quirky Quokka]

I wish I hadn't included the Coles Phillips work, not because it isn't stunning, but the other two work well together and Coles Phillps' work is something quite different.
A Note. His faces are so individual and distinctive that he must have been doing what amounts to portraits of a number of models and acquaintances     
Somebody asked what style his work was. I can't give it a name, but there are elements of Art Deco there, I think, and of what they called 'Pop Art' in the 60's. I was reminded of the Beatles Portraits that
Richard Avedon did for LOOK magazine.
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/192458584045544412/
   

The other two do work well together, Panther, as they show images of the well-to-do and the down-and-outs. But I'm not sorry you posted the Coles one. I really liked that art.

[crashryan]

I'm late coming to the table on this one. It's been quite a couple of weeks. A flea infestation, a critical election, unexpected family drama. It was enough to drive a guy to reading comic books.

London as Seen by Charles Dana Gibson

I'm proud to say that I own a copy of this marvellous book. It's a handsome production. Life published a number of these themed volumes and later gathered their contents into a two-volume reprint set. I rescued one of those from an antiques merchant who'd been cutting out and selling individual pages, so they're rather a mess. To add insult to injury some 19th-century aspiring artist drew (attempted) copies of the figures on many pages. But that is neither here nor there.

I've already bored everyone with my praise of Gibson so I'll limit myself to reiterating what a profound influence he had on American illustrators. Gibson directly influenced James Montgomery Flagg, who in turn mentored Everett Raymond Kinstler, who carried the tradition into the comics. Kinstler's story art seldom showed the Gibson/Flagg influence but the inside front covers he drew for Avon were in the grand manner. Another comic artist who started in the Gibson style but developed his own sketchy approach was Charles Voight. And we mustn't forget Frank Godwin, a superb pen craftsman who worked well into the 1950s on the Rusty Riley newspaper strip.

One of the hardest things to render in pen and ink is heads. One line out of place and the whole thing looks lousy. That's why artists tend to hold back on hatching and cross-hatching on faces, especially pretty women's faces. For Gibson this was no problem. Page 17, "A First Night," showcases his amazing control of halftone and shadow. Sometimes the result looks overworked, as if Gibson were showing off what he could do. Or maybe he was just in love with his pen. As time went on he simplified his rendering. In the typical Gibson Girl head only the cheeks, eye sockets, and the underside of the nose were modelled. This gave the drawings a fresh, direct look that I think accounted for much of their popularity.

As others have pointed out Gibson specialized in the upper class. He must have drawn enough tuxedos during his career to paper a planet. When he did draw figures from the "other half" they were usually pictured in contrast to the "swells." He drew organ grinders, beggars, flower sellers, and the like. Even when they were the subject of a joke, Gibson always drew the underprivileged with the same respect he showed the entitled. I don't know much about Gibson the man. He came from an upper-class family, married a railroad heiress, and hobnobbed with the rich and famous as well as with fellow artists. In later years he took up oil painting. Apparently his paintings were well-received at the time, but I've only found a couple of them online. They were something of a surprise. Portraits of beautiful women, of course, but somewhat rough and not showing the assurance that animated Gibson's pen work. Maybe I've only seen the unfinished ones. One writer, describing Gibson as very proper, said that in his entire career Gibson drew only one nude, and that was a distant statue in a garden scene. Not to worry. James Montgomery Flagg more than made up for him!

[The Australian Panther]

One of the hardest things to render in pen and ink is heads. One line out of place and the whole thing looks lousy.

What I've noticed in comic book art is that many artists find feet and hands hard to draw, so they often fake it completely.
Some of the ninetys generation of comic artists just drew pointed rectangles for feet.

cheers! 

[crashryan]

Phil May's Guttersnipes

Reading up on Phil May's early years, he was the polar opposite of Gibson. His father died when he was nine and the family struggled to stay afloat. Wikipedia says that when he went to London to seek his fortune he had a rough time. He slept on park benches. He began to sell his drawings, but moved to Australia for his health. He spent two years there, drawing for The Sydney Bulletin. This is where he developed his pen style. Eventually he returned to England where his guttersnipe drawings made him famous. Like Gibson he drew what he knew. There's no question that he sympathized with his subjects, though I think it was years of security and comfort that led him to wonder if the poor were happier than the well-to-do. He probably would have felt differently if he had to go back to sleeping on park benches.

If you missed it, Charles Dana Gibson's portrait of Phil May appears on page 61 of London as Seen...

Too bad May was both an anti-Semite and a racist. He must have fit right in at the Bulletin, whose motto was "Australia for the White Man." May's notorious "Mongolian Octopus" cartoon makes quite a contrast with his affectionate drawings of street kids.

[crashryan]

A Gallery of Girls

I was fortunate to buy a copy of Michael Schau's 1975 book about Coles Phillips. It was one of three books about Golden Age illustrators published by Watson-Guptill in the mid-70s. I'm not sure why the Phillips book didn't make it. Schau's J.C. Leyendecker book was reprinted several times and Susan Aieyer's bio of James Montgomery Flagg was in the bookstores for a reasonable period. The Phillips book had already been remaindered when I found it in 1975. I don't feel Phillips has ever gotten his due.

A Gallery of Girls is a terrific selection of his Fadeaway Girls. Though the fadeaway technique was a gimmick, it was a great gimmick. It's wonderful to see how far Phillips could push negative space and make us see things that aren't there. One of my favorites is "The Corn Exchange" on page 34. The girl's dress is as we'd expect, but the chickens take the prize. They're hardly more than a few colored areas and strokes of black, yet they're solid three-dimensional beings. The many Fadeaway Girls suggest that they're all Phillips could draw. It's too bad the black-and-white pictures are printed so small because we'd be able to see that he was quite at home with the whole thematic range of the times. Which admittedly was pretty narrow: lots and lots of spooning couples and chubby cherubs.

Phillips' treatment of the car on page 30 made me ponder the connection between Phillips' style and the German poster artists who developed what came to be called the Plakatstil. Lucian Bernhard is credited with developing this very graphic poster style, using large flat shapes that worked as both representational and decorative elements. He even did a few fadeaway figures. Bernhard started working in the early 1900s, like Phillips, and I've been unable to compare enough dates to decide who came first. Bernhard preferred flat, stylized figures rather than Phillips' realistic renderings. A Plakatstil artist who followed Bernhard, Hans Rudi Erdt, did quite a few fadeaway posters which seem to have started appearing around 1911, when Gallery of Girls was published. Was he influenced by Phillips as well as Bernhard? I dunno. They did great stuff, though. About the same time Ludwig Hohlwein worked in a similar style although fadeaway drawings were only a tiny part of his output.

Unfortunately Coles Phillips had chronic health problems and died while still in his forties. He had become annoyed with being typecast as the Fadeaway Girl artist and was trying to branch out. One wonders how his style would have evolved.

[K1ngcat]

I've already bored everyone with my praise of Gibson so I'll limit myself to reiterating what a profound influence he had on American illustrators. Gibson directly influenced James Montgomery Flagg, who in turn mentored Everett Raymond Kinstler, who carried the tradition into the comics. Kinstler's story art seldom showed the Gibson/Flagg influence but the inside front covers he drew for Avon were in the grand manner.

Thanks for connecting those dots, crash, I felt there was something of the Gibson in Kinstler's b/w work, but didn't realise there was a traceable influence. Good to know.
All the best
K1ngcat