Archive for October, 2004
October 24th, 2004 | 
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Art Fitzpatrick & Van Kaufman
Art Fitzpatrick began his career designing cars. At 20, he designed the Darrin Packard 4-door convertible and hard top sedans, and at 22 was a consulting designer to General Electric. After World War II service as a Naval Officer, he turned to advertising design and illustration, beginning with 8 years of Mercury, including 4 years of Lincoln ads. Before GM obtained his exclusive services (20 years worth), he did ads for Nash, Plymouth, Chrysler, Kaiser and Studebaker. During these years, he also did art, graphic and product design for other Fortune 500 clients.
Van Kaufman went from art school to Walt Disney Studios, where he became a key animator and director. He served in the Army Air Force in the war, producing and directing training films. Back to Disney, he then left to travel and live in Europe for a while, and then to New York and advertising and editorial art. In 1951 Fitz, having admired Van’s art for an Italian Line campaign, suggested him for the backgrounds on the Mercury ads.
That began a 24 year collaboration and a 43 year friendship that lasted until Van’s death in 1995.
Bron: www.fitz-art.com
Leslie Ragan
Leslie Ragan was a speciality illustrator who had a particular niche in the market, and who stood in it unchanged for most of his career. He painted machines moving fast through landscapes. He was born in Iowa and went to the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines and then to the Art Institute in Chicago.
He designed posters an illustrations using opaque watercolours on Upson Board – wood panel found in timberyards and which has a pebbled surface. The surface is fixed with denatured alcahol and gum. His design, a combination of site observation and tracings from photographs is projected upon the board with a Balopticon ( a sort of sophisticated slide projector). The panel is then worked up flat on a table to allow the paint to dry without drips and run. ( see Ernest Watson, Forty Illustrators and How they Work, Watson Guptill New York 1946, the main source of reference on mid century commercial illustration in America.
His major campaigns were for New York Grand Central and for Budd. For examples of his work for The Budd Manufacturing Company …
Bron: cccw.adh.bton.ac.uk
