Famous Frames

Today’s post is about frames. No - not picture frames, photography frames. More specifically, frame numbers one through six taken by Scottish photographer Iain MacMillan’s camera on Friday, August 8th,1969. That is the day that he captured the iconic image of the Beatles for the cover of their Abbey Road LP.

Snap Galleries in London has just opened an exhibition called "Beatles and Bystanders: the unknowns at Abbey Road". For probably the first time ever, all the photos taken of the Beatles during the Abby Road album cover shoot are being displayed side-by-side in a gallery. Thats a total of only six photos folks. Can you imagine only six exposures being taken during a shoot for a CD cover these days? Don’t think so!

Frame number 5 of those six was the chosen shot which we all know and love today.

The exposure not only captured John, Paul, George, and Ringo, it also immortalized a few lucky bystanders in the background that day too.

And yes, there were other people. It’s interesting to think that had another shot been chosen by the band, a different cast of characters would be populating the street and would have been immortalized on one of the best albums of the greatest band ever.

These photos are sought after by many collectors and they might never be displayed in this way again. During the shoot the street was not closed, and there was limited time to get the cover shot. It’s very interesting to read about all the activity that was going on just a short distance from the band and the making of an iconic image. There were delivery trucks coming and going, and various characters milling about in the background (at least a dozen of which show up in the unused frames).

The folks at the gallery have inspected all of the shots closely and have identified all the people and their stories in the cover photo, and almost all the people in the other five shots as well.

The Abbey Road cover has been inspected closely by Beatle fans all over the world primarily for the “Paul is dead” clues that it contains, but it has never been looked at in the context of one shot in a group of six, as it is in this exhibit. The gallery has every page of the small catalogue viewable on-line as well.

Lastly, to me, the contrast of how that photo shoot was done compared to how it would be today is staggering. Today for a band who even attempts to approach the stratosphere of the Beatles, entire streets would be closed down and all the “extras” in the shot would be as carefully choreographed as the band members themselves. Hundreds of shots might be taken and placed on a bands website. Then perhaps the record company would tweet all about it in order to generate excitement and sales.

Not so in 1969. But that’s what so great about the Beatles and their time - little hype was necessary since their raw musical talent, their contagious aura as a band and as individuals, as well as their positive message of love is what shined through then.

And still does today!

JoeWinklerArt.com

Just a Beginning

Besides working on additional large oil compositions of classic car parts, along the lines of my Packard piece, I have recently started some small oils. Small being 8x10 inches and down. Wanted to share the first three steps of one those today. This one is 5x7 inches. No title as of yet.

Small paintings are fun for many reasons not least of which is the fact that they can be completed in one session. I’m looking forward to taking this one to finish because the toughest part is already complete. That being the illusion of depth created through the blurring of the small bud, as well as the use of an abstract but gradated background.

Just one other item of interest for you today, this on the international art front - this week it was decided by the Polish Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski, that the masterpiece “Lady with an Ermine” by Leonardo da Vinci will be allowed to travel to museums outside of Poland for the first time in well over 100 years.

Personally I wouldn’t want to be responsible for making that decision, but I would LOVE to have the job that these art conservators have of cataloging and packing all the priceless works of art that come and go from a museum. To see all the masterpieces up close and actually handle them would be amazing!

JoeWinklerArt.com

My Prized Packard!

Last Friday was the reception for an annual exhibit I participate in with the artists of Upper St. Clair, (which is a large suburb of Pittsburgh). It is a juried show and we hang approximately twenty-five to thirty-five pieces.

This year I submitted my oil painting “Packard” and it won first place!

The juror this year was artist, Steve Leonardi. I was told by more than one member of the group who were at the judging that my painting was well above others in his subjective criteria of things like, composition, technique, color etc... Really made me feel proud to hear that.

I enjoy looking at old cars and whenever there is a classic car show in the area I shoot as much photo reference as I can.  In this piece I cropped in close on the very lucid and becoming hood ornament of an old Packard car. I intentionally wanted a lower point of view to pump up the aura of the subject and make it seem even larger than it is in reality, so as to give it more impact.

Also when painting it, I removed all background distractions which helps to focus the viewers attention on the reflections. Overall I believe it is a successful piece because of two things: the contrast between the sharp edged subject against a very soft background, and the fact that a large single image, that has various details within it, is more powerful than a composition filled with details all over the place.

While putting my time in working on-site at the exhibit, which is in a fashionable Galleria mall in the area, folks would come up to me and ask “How do you paint metal so well?” I never have a graceful answer in person, but the answer is, I wasn’t painting “metal”, I was just painting “shapes”.  As in every other subject under the sun,a subject should be thought of as nothing more than a bunch of shapes. Ever read the book, "Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain"? Well all right then.

It’s the job of the artist to take those shapes and arrange them in a way that conveys a subject convincingly through the manipulation of values, colors, size relationships, paint texture and all the rest of it.

Next up for this painting (if it doesn’t sell in the current exhibit) is a fun event called ART ALL NIGHT.

JoeWinklerArt.com

J.C. Leyendecker - Part 6 (of 6)

In the last post I mentioned that some, critical of Leyendecker’s work, say that his characters (especially his women) look a bit distant or perhaps mechanical. I can see that, but I’m not bothered by it in the least.

Here are more samples of Saturday Evening Post covers that tell another tale about J.C. Leyendecker.

These might come across as oddly effeminate. This is not surprising since Leyendecker was, in fact, gay (if you didn’t already know that). It needed to be mentioned here however because that fact is interesting in looking at some of his best images.

Being a gay man during the time he lived was a huge taboo so he remained in the closet his entire life. Yet one of his main clients was the "Saturday Evening Post". I think it’s funny to look back at his work and see so many seemingly homosexual images on the cover of a very mainstream, conservative, and hugely popular magazine. The millions of folks who got the magazine probably didn’t catch what he was subtly (or not so subtly) throwing at them. Perhaps the publishes were gay as well.

Whether you look at his Post covers or his advertising art, you see an awful lot of muscular men exchanging longing looks or come hither stares. In the ad image below, one man watches another as he fondles his,  um...  shaft.

And when there is a woman present, many times she seems either oddly detached or ignored completely, as in the Arrow ad below.

In the next image there seems to be a sneaky three way connection between the three service “men”. The woman is again ignored.

In this next ad, instead of gazing into each others eyes, one model stairs at the others genitals. Funny how the fedora is placed just so.

In an earlier post I talked about Leyendecker’s ability to render flesh in such a way that it resembled porcelain. One of the reasons for that, aside from the medium he used, was the reference he set up, right in front of him. He would bring these beefcake models into his studio, oil those boys up and down, and light them just so. All that was left to do was to apply those amazing rendering and painting talents of his.

After successfully placing so many of these kinds of ad images in front of mainstream America, by the time he was doing cover art for America’s most popular magazine, Leyendecker must have thought “What can’t I get away with?”.

There are a precious few books out there on J.C. Leyendecker. The fist which came out in the 1970s is out of print, and had bad reproductions of his work.

The second is a poster book of some of his best work with biographical information in the front.

The third book, which just came out just a couple years ago, has by far the most numerous and best reproductions of his work. Most images were shot from the original paintings, as opposed to old scans of already printed magazine ads and covers, so you can really see the paint texture. It’s not very well written however, but it is comprehensive.

JoeWinklerArt.com

J.C. Leyendecker - Part 5

Another thing I love about the art of J.C. Leyendecker are those graphic and architectural design elements he incorporates into his paintings, particularly his Post covers. Just look at the wonderful rendering of this fleur-de-lis flourish from an Easter Post cover...

...or this chiseled scroll...

 ...you could crack an egg on those things! Leyendecker used many scrolls in his covers and no artist at the time could come close to designing and rendering one like him.

Aside from his “Arrow Collar Man”, Leyendecker was the first artist to use a baby as a symbol for a new year and an old man as the symbol for an old year. An iconic standard still with us today.

Which brings me to the one knock that some folks put on Leyendecker's art. Some say that his figures are a little too stiff or iconographic, and not human enough.

I somewhat agree, but that has always been overshadowed for me by his fantastic rendering skills.

One final post about J.C. Leyendecker to come next time!

JoeWinklerArt.com

joe@joewinklerart.com

J.C. Leyendecker - Part 4

At the height of his fame J.C. Leyendecker was busy painting "Saturday Evening Post" covers. Three-hundred twenty-two of them in fact. Yet many people who aren’t into illustration art will easily confuse Leyendecker Post covers with Norman Rockwell’s.

When one gets to know Leyendecker’s work, then looks at early Rockwell Post covers, the Leyendecker influence becomes apparent. Subject matter-wise many of the whimsical and provincial themes and subjects people attribute to Rockwell were actually done years before by Leyendecker.

Considering his entire body of work however there are a few reasons why I love looking at any of Leyendeckers paintings. The first endearing quality are those slashing diagonal, confident brush strokes of his. It’s amazing how loose and free they seem, yet they render forms and textures so convincingly.

Look at how tangible surfaces and textures are, and yet they are still not executed in what I’d call a photo-realistic way. No areas are overworked at all, that's the beauty of his technique. Looks easy to do. But it's NOT. The only time I’ve ever seen a similar technique is from professional story-board artists using markers.

Which brings me to Leyendeckers formula for mixing oil medium. He used a special blend of turpentine, stand oil, and linseed oil, mixed fresh everyday in specific proportions. This mixture gave his paint a thin, slippery consistency, which showed no sign of texture on the canvas.

When not using the slash stroke technique, Leyendecker was able to work areas of the subject to such a smooth finish that it reads almost like porcelain. In the paintings and detail below, he uses both techniques. Staples of the classic Leyendecker look!

joe@joewinklerart.com

JoeWinklerArt.com

J.C. Leyendecker - Part 3

Without getting into too many extraneous details, dates, and biographical information about Leyendecker, it is somewhat important to mention that his fame happened before photography really began to influence the working methods of illustrators. So he didn’t have the luxury, as did Rockwell and so many others, of using decent and quickly produced photo reference in order to tweek compositions, explore models facial expressions, and experiment with costumes. There’s nothing wrong with using photos, but the fact that Leyendecker very probably didn’t, makes his skills all the more impressive. Just look at these wonderful preparatory oil studies for final paintings.

The entire challenge for any realistic artist as I see it, is to distill the details of their subject down to the bare essential few pieces of visual information needed to nail the description of the thing. “Less is more” as they say. Leaving something for the viewer to fill in is always a good thing.

That’s more of a “fine art” rather than commercial illustration philosophy. Being an illustrator trying to depict a product and belt out work on a deadline had a lot more to do with the­ development of these studies than any artistic philosophy did. But looking at these studies one gets the feeling that Leyendecker could execute the less is more approach as well as any “fine artist” ever could. I guss being an artist with your feet held to the fire to produce work on time for a publisher isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Here’s a couple close-ups to appreciate the confidence with which he sketches with the brush. Look particularly at the fabric portions. Think his previous experience illustrating such products as Interwoven Socks and Arrow Shirts paid off? I’d say so!­­­­­­

The only pencil I can see is the grid lines he used to get proportions right. That’s the great thing about working in oils, they can be thinned down to a watercolor consistency, but, unlike watercolor, the oils can be easily “erased” with paint thinner even hours after placing a stroke.

Among the things we’ll be looking at next time is Leyendeckers “secret” formula for mixing paint medium, something which was essential in allowing him to produce the “Leyendecker Look”.

joe@joewinklerart.com

JoeWinklerArt.com

J.C. Leyendecker - Part 2

J.C. Leyendecker was a classically trained artist who earned a living as an illustrator, but his talent could easily match that of any fine artist in the history of art. The guys fluid and accurate drawing skills were just phenomenal, and that’s really the foundation of any good illustration or painting you know.

His artistic training took him and his brother (who became a lesser known illustrator) to Paris, where he witnessed first hand the art nouveau style and the imagery of Alphonse Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec. His early work reflects these influences, but it wasn’t until years later that he perfected his own style which became famous as the “Leyendecker look” characterized by those chiselled and confident, yet free-flowing painterly brush strokes which I just love.

Leyendecker gave early American magazine covers and advertisements a distinctive look which dove-tailed with, and in many ways became representational of, the roaring twenties and the “Gatsby era”.

Among his many advertising clients early on were the House of Kuppenheimer, the U.S. Armed forces, Chesterfield cigarettes, and Kelloggs cereal. My favorite illustrations however are the classic ones he did for Arrow shirts and collars. Leyendecker created the “Arrow Collar Man” which was used by the Arrow company for many years.

Because these ad images were not shot directly from Leyendecker's original oil paintings, it might be difficult to appreciate the skill with which these figures were rendered. The image of the female head at the top of the post gives a better idea of the total and complete mastery of brushwork that Leyendecker possessed.

Next time we'll look closer at his working methods and wallow in some of his fantastic paintings!

JoeWinklerArt.com

joe@joewinklerart.com