Anchor Park United Methodist Church, Anchorage, Alaska: Framed MarvinD. Mangus Display

Marvin Mangus

Anchor Park United Methodist Church

Anchor Park United Methodist Church

Anchor Park United Methodist Church

Marvin Mangus

Marvin Mangus

Anchor Park United Methodist Church in Anchorage has a nice framed-display showcasing some of the weekly service programs that featured dad's paintings as monochromatic cover illustrations. Alfred sent me a recent photo of this display piece. I still love the Mid-Century Modern design of the church.

"Anchorage's population grew as a result of the influx of military families and support industries after World War II and the Korean Conflict.  

First United Methodist Church on the Parkstrip was the only Methodist church in Anchorage and was bursting with worshipers. So there was a need to establish another Methodist church and new subdivisions were going up on the East of the Downtown area, mostly to house military families. 

These neighborhoods were canvassed to see who would want to attend a Methodist church nearby and enough people signed up to start a congregation in 1954. Money was secured to start construction on the main building, then an education wing was added in 1963, and the west wing was added in 2004. 

Membership has ranged from a low of 78 in 1954 to a high of 399 in both 1968 and 1994. Polynesian people, most from Tonga, established a fellowship in 1978 and have contributed greatly to the life of the church. 

Service to the community has benefited Bean's Cafe, Clare House, F.I.S.H., Alcoholics Anonymous, Boy and Girl Scouts, and many other groups and individuals over the past 50 years."

Max Dalton: Jazz Album Art

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Max Dalton

Some hip Max Dalton jazz album covers -- I especially like the Winsor McCay riff on the Monk cover -- double-collectible...

'Max Dalton lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has been drawing since he was two or three years old. Max has too many interests to list here -- from writing to painting to playing music and reading about animals -- but his all-time favorite is drawing. He is the illustrator of "The Lonely Phone Booth," "The Lonely Typewriter," and "Extreme Opposites."'

Jonny Quest Tech

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest

I still love all that Mid-Century Modern "Jonny Quest" tech...

Deja Vu, All Over Again

Simon Greco: The Art of Perspective Drawing

Simon Greco

Simon Greco

Simon Greco

For anyone wanting to learn about perspective drawing, this over-sized 48-page book by Simon Greco remains a favorite. I studied it for countless hours as a cartooning tyro...

The Magic Realism of Illustrators Frank Frazetta and Russ Heath

Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta

Russ Heath

Russ Heath

Three "magic realism" magazine/paperback book/comic book covers that totally blew my mind, back in the day when I first saw them on the magazine racks (and even now) -- two by Frank Frazetta and one by Russ Heath (plus a bonus, modern, re-created Heath version)...

Russian Illustrator Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin (Russian, 1876-1942) was a 20th-century illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva, contributed to the Ballets Russes, became co-founder of the 'Soyuz russkih hudožnikov' '(Association of Russian Painters) and from 1937 on was a member of the Soyuz hudožnikov SSSR (Painters Association of the USSR). Throughout his career, he was inspired by Slavic folklore.

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen: Cats

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen 

Born in Lausanne, Theophile Alexander Steinlen studied at the University of Lausanne before taking a job as a designer trainee at a textile mill in Mulhouse in Eastern France. In his early twenties he was still developing his skills as a painter when he and his new wife were encouraged by the painter François Bocion to move to the artistic community in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris. Once there, Steinlen was befriended by the painter Adolphe Willette who introduced him to the artistic crowd at Le Chat Noir that led to his commissions to do poster art for the cabaret owner/entertainer, Aristide Bruant and other commercial enterprises.

In the early 1890s, Steinlen's paintings of rural landscapes, flowers, and nudes were being shown at the Salon des Indépendants. His 1895 lithograph titled Les Chanteurs des Rueswas the frontispiece to a work entitled Chansons de Montmartre published by Éditions Flammarion with sixteen original lithographs that illustrated the Belle Epoque songs of Paul Delmet. His permanent home, Montmartre and its environs, was a favorite subject throughout Steinlen's life and he often painted scenes of some of the harsher aspects of life in the area. In addition to paintings and drawings, he also did sculpture on a limited basis, most notably figures of cats that he had great affection for as seen in many of his paintings.

Steinlen became a regular contributor to Le Rire and Gil Blas magazines plus numerous other publications including L'Assiette au Beurre and Les Humouristes, a short-lived magazine he and a dozen other artists jointly founded in 1911. Between 1883 and 1920, he produced hundreds of illustrations, a number of which were done under a pseudonym so as to avoid political problems because of their harsh criticisms of societal ills.

Illustrator Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Robert Weaver

Beginning in the 1950s, Robert Weaver (1924-1994) epitomized a socially engaged approach to commercial illustration, drawing the human drama from the immediacy of life. By integrating formal and conceptual currents from fine art practices, he altered the practice’s methodologies, thus dramatically expanding its possibilities.

After studying at the Carnegie Institute, the Art Student’s League in New York, and the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Venice, Weaver began his career in New York in 1952 and over the next three decades, his work appeared in Esquire, Fortune, Life, Look, Playboy, Seventeen, Sports Illustrated, and TV Guide, among many other publications.

In addition to his magazine work, Weaver illustrated numerous books and advertising campaigns. He was the recipient of many awards from The Society of Illustrators (which elected him into their Hall of Fame in 1985) and the Art Director’s Clubs of New York and Philadelphia, and his work was the subject of the posthumous retrospective, “Seeing is Not Believing: The Art of Robert Weaver” at the Norman Rockwell Museum in 1997. Weaver was a visiting faculty member at Syracuse University and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York for more than thirty years, co-creating their Illustration as Visual Essay program.

His teaching legacy was such that a 1997 issue of drawing / sva was devoted to his memory, giving his former students the opportunity to reflect on his profound influence as an educator. Paul Davis, Editor of the publication, described Weaver’s view of illustration, “as a vital instrument of modern communication, not an afterthought, not a decoration, but a powerful and complete statement, illustration that does not depend on a text but is in fact its own text and its own story.”

With his bold line dominant and a focus on urban landscape, Weaver left the process visible, reflecting his commitment to manifesting on the page the changing cultural climate. He stressed the importance of drawing life, from life, guided by a political conscience and incorporating collage elements that literally brought the physical world into his charged psychological space. In 1986, Weaver edited a graduate student publication titled Unframed, stating his goals on the cover, “To put illustrators to work doing the thing they do best...showing us what the world looks like.”

M. Todd Hignite

Modern Graphic History Curator, Washington University in St. Louis

Helen Siegl Relief Prints

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

Helen Siegl

During her career, Helen Siegl (1924-2009) was celebrated for both her individually signed and numbered prints and for her book illustrations. In the latter category, she illustrated such well-known works as The Dancing Palm Tree (Texas Tech) which was chosen one of The Years Best Illustrated Children's Books by the New York Times in 1990, Aesop's Fables (Random House), Birds and Beasts (World Publishing), Earrings for Celia (Pantheon), and Indian Tales (Random House). Siegl also illustrated limited-edition books such as Mother Goose & Herbal (Janus Press). She also designed calendars for UNICEF. 

As a printmaker, Siegl was renowned for her innovative techniques, often combining woodblocks, linoleum blocks, etchings, and even plaster blocks within the same work of art. Siegl's plaster block technique appeared in the American Artist magazine in May 1955. She also gave lectures on the subject at the Print Club in Philadelphia.