polish poster design

poland is famous for it’s poster designers. one of the probably best known, for his animated films as well, is JAN LENICA. below a collection of polish posters from the past 20 years

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the following selection of illustrations was created by WILHELM M.BUSCH from the late 1940s to the 1980s. the change of his drawing style over that period of time should be interesting to watch…

© wilhelm m.busch

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you might have recognized one or the other artist in the past INSPIRING posts. there were only some files where I had noted the name of the artist, so I decided not to add names in the image compilations at all, it’s more about the art that inspires us, not the name. but – I understand that some of you are curious about some more work a particular artist might have created. below is a list of the, in my opinion, most important comic strip-, cartoon-, caricature and character-design artists, whose work is already represented in the past posts, or will be in the upcoming ones. I am still working on a second list of most important illustrators and concept designers.

after realizing I forgot some important artists I changed the list.

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art students are usually asked to create an INFLUENCE MAP, assembling artwork of artists that infuences them the most. classical paintings, contemporary illustrations, comic strips, character-/concept-designs from animated movies are among other things where we consciously or subconsciously borrow elements, techniques or looks from. as an artist we always need to be inspired, we get a lot of that from life around us. and the endless resources within the world of the internet provide us with all the information and reference we could dream of.
before the time of the internet most illustrators had a huge cut-out archives, reference images cut from magazines and books, and archived alphabetically. I still have cabinets full with those treasures. it took forever and was not cheap. today google is much cheaper and more important – faster.

probably about 15 years ago, when the internet speed in this part of asia where I live, improved, I started the same what I had done years ago, to collect all different reference images – but this time downloaded from the internet and nicely archived ( not always ) in folders for easier locating them. reference photography, classical art, children book-/magazine-/book-illustration, concept art and production design for live action and animation, comic strip. so far some million files.

during this pandemic, for longer than six months I am more or less stuck at my home, what gave me the opportunity to dig through my collections. you have seen already some of the results in my last posts, more to come.

today i wanna show you my version of influence maps, compilations of inspiring artwork that I put together randomly, from those thousands of reference folders.

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Krazy Kat (also known as Krazy & Ignatz in some reprints and compilations) is an American newspaper comic strip by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters had been introduced previously in a side strip with Herriman’s earlier creation, The Dingbat Family.[1] The phrase “Krazy Kat” originated there, said by the mouse by way of describing the cat. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman’s vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat’s mixture of offbeat surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic, idiosyncratic language has made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.
( from wikipedia )
I recommend to look at these 2 ( one / two ) articles about herriman

© george herriman

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I realized how many more books illustrated by WILHELM M.BUSCH I have, and decided to prepare some more chapters about this ‘illustration giant’. his artwork below is from the book ‘LIEBE IN FRANKREICH’ ( love in france ). look how effortless these sketches were ‘written down’…

© wilhelm m.busch

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below I have collected some of my own artwork containing house-designs from all over the years…

© walt disney enterprises
© universal pictures/amblin entertainment

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let me quote DAVID APATOFF in his incredible blog ILLUSTRATION ART –
‘HENRY PATRICK RALEIGH, (1880-1944), started and ended life in poverty and despair. but in between, he spent decades painting high society pictures and living the opulent life of one of the best paid illustrators in the united states.’
RALEIGH’S illustrations belong to the best I have ever seen, and it is not just the draftsmanship in his drawings, it is his amazing talent to tell us a story in these images, you know what the characters are saying and thinking! it is a rare talent that you can only find in a few artists. I am in awe.

here are a few links ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ) where you can find more information about him, as well as more artwork.

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todays collection is about german illustrator WILHELM M.BUSCH, 1908 – 1987. in the past I published already 43 posts about his extraordinary work, that’s why I thought an overview over his life work might be interesting, where you can see changes in style and drawing techniques. the images in this chapter are from 2 major work-catalogues.

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this is the first part of a new SERIES – ILLUSTRATION ARCHIVES -, where I am planning to share with you some of the hundreds of illustatrators I have collected over the years.

JOHN CONRAD BERKEY,1932 – 2008, was an american artist known for his space- and science fiction-themed works. some of berkey’s best-known work includes much of the original poster art for the STAR WARS trilogy and the poster for the 1976 remake of KING KONG, berkey produced a large body of space fantasy artwork, creating utopian scenes of bubble-shaped, yacht-like spaceships. his distinctive painterly style has been evaluated as “at once realistic, yet impressionistic and abstract”, and his space craft designs as being “distinctly elegant, yet clearly technological and unmistakably BERKIAN, more inspired by luxury yachts and manta rays than NASA”. he has been described as “one of the giants in the history of science fiction art”.
( from wikipedia )

© john conrad berkey

karl arnold

KARL ARNOLD, 1883 – 1953, was one of the leading caricaturists and illustrators of the first half of the 20th century in Germany. KARL ARNOLD studied drawing in his native Neustadt before entering the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1901, where he trained under the artists Karl Raupp, Ludwig Löfftz and Franz von Stuck, and where among his fellow students were Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. in 1907 Arnold contributed his first illustration to the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, with which he was to be closely associated for much of his later career. Arnold spent some months in Paris between 1910 and 1911 from where he continued to contribute illustrations for Simplicissimus and its rival, the art and literary journal Jugend. in 1913 Arnold was, along with Kandinsky and Alexej von Jawlensky, one of the founders of the Neue Münchener Sezession (New Munich Secession) group, and contributed to its first exhibition, held the following year. between 1934 and 1936 he served as the director of Simplicissimus, and in 1936 engaged in an exclusive contract as a cartoonist for the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung. beset by illness and following a stroke in 1943, Arnold produced very little work before his death in 1953, not long after being appointed an honorary member of the Academy in Munich. Arnold’s graphic work began to be recognized again in the 1970’s, with a retrospective of his drawings and caricatures held in Berlin and elsewhere in 1975 and an exhibition dedicated to Simplicissimus at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 1977. as has been noted of Arnold’s illustrations, ‘his unique quality as an artist is the brilliant characterisation of types and the extraordinarily telling conjunction of picture and caption.’
( from stephen ongpin fine art )

© karl arnold / simpicissimus

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Ragnvald Blix, 1882 – 1958, was a Norwegian illustrator, caricaturist and magazine editor. he was particularly known for his anti-Nazi drawings World War II.
Ragnvald Blix was born in Oslo, the son of a theologian and Norwegian minister of the church. Blix was an entirely self-taught artist. he quickly gave up studying painting, he preferred to draw caricatures. when his older friend Olaf Gulbransson moved to Germany in 1902, Blix followed him as a cartoonist for the Tyrihans newspaper. an inheritance enabled him to travel through Europe in 1903. from 1904-08 he stayed in Paris and worked for the satirical magazine L’Assiette au Beurre, among others. In 1907 a first drawing in Simplicissimus appeared and in 1908 Blix moved to Munich, publication city of the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, where he lived until 1918. after a short stopover in Oslo, where he founded the magazine Exlex (bird-free) in february 1919 based on the model of Simplicissimus, he moved with it to Copenhagen only nine months later, where he spent the rest of his life. after two years, however, Blix had to give up the magazine again. from then on he worked for various Scandinavian newspapers and magazines. after the occupation of Denmark by Germany during the Second World War, Blix fled to Sweden, where he was able to continue working. after the war he returned to Denmark.
between 1907 and 1925 Blix published 466 drawings in Simplicissimus. Two contributions appeared in the Munich youth. Blix was internationally active, published for example in the New York Times and in Swedish newspapers.
his drawings were initially characterized by a combination of line and surface, as is typical of the art of Jugendstil. However, as early as 1908, he took up Gulbransson’s clear line drawing, which he was in no way inferior to in his ability to characterize contemporary politicians. in the 1930s, biting anti-Hitler caricatures were created and even in Swedish exile he was able to expose leading Nazi politicians under the pseudonym Stig Höök.
( from german wikipedia )
see as well my earlier post

JOE GRANT, who had the complete edition of the german magazine SIMPLICISSIMUS in big volumes in his house, was the first to introduce me to BLIX. in the beginning I was more in favor of GULBRANSSON’S style and characters, and we had discussions about the two artists. joe preferred BLIX, and now after so many years I understand why. you can judge yourself, today with some of BLIX work, tomorrow GULBRANSSON will follow. whoever might be your favorite, I think everybody can get a lot of inspiration out of the two absolute masters of caricature.

© simplicissimus, blix

hans kossatz

my collection of illustrations created by hans kossatz for the radio magazine HOER ZU goes back to the late fifties. still in elementary school I was fascinated by his chaotic drawings that told so many stories and were full of funny hidden gags. so I started to collect them. hans kossatz, 1901 – 1985, was a self taught german freelance illustrator, who worked from the early thirties on for various german magazines and newspapers. after WWII a dog character he created, teckel willi, became very popular.

© hans kossatz / hoer zu magazine