Source: https://wulibraries.typepad.com/mghlnews/robert-weaver/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 03:51:08+00:00

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This weekend would have been expressionistic artist Robert Weaver's 90th birthday. In honor of this occasion, Modern Graphic History Library presents sketches which Weaver drew 55 years ago for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
CBS Television Network released annual promotional calendars entitled "A Television Notebook." Each week of the year would feature an illustration or photograph. Weaver drew for the 1960 calendar, featuring black and white sketches of behind-the-scenes production work.
During his visit at CBS, Weaver saw the production of television shows, advertisements, and on-location football coverage. He captured the details of all aspects of production and added handwritten captions to the bottom of each sketch.
Many of the calendar's sketches focus on a production of a western, including the actors, set design, and costuming.
Weaver was a pioneer of visual journalism. He believed the role of the illustrator should be an active one, and that illustrators had a journalistic responsibility. Weaver wanted his artwork to not only report information but to also allow others to experience it.
Weaver drew locations and situations as he saw them. If a piece of equipment was in front of a person's face, he illustrated the scene "as-is" and did not try to rearrange subjects or objects for an idealized version.
Weaver was influenced by the work of film directors Orson Wells, Roberto Rossellini, and Victorio De Sica, who showed there was drama in everyday, ordinary moments.
CBS produced these artwork-filled promotional calendars throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The 1970 calendar featured black and white photography.
Examples of these artists' art can be found in the Walt Reed Illustration Archive.
All of Robert Weaver's calendar images are part of the Robert Weaver Collection.
A Television Notebook By Robert Weaver. 5b4 Blogspot, November 2, 2008.
Robert Weaver. Graphic Witness, n.d.
The Robert Weaver painting is from the Robert Weaver Collection.
Fifty years ago today, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Modern Graphic History Library takes a look at how JFK has been represented through illustration.
Kennedy was a popular person for magazines to illustrate. During his political career, magazines were sending out illustrators to "report" on events as an illustrative-equivalent to a photo journalist.
In the 1950s, magazines were already using lots of photographs, but they were having to compete against the visual images of television. One way magazines found to differentiate themselves from black-and-white television coverage was to feature color illustrations of a topical event. Typically, these illustrators would draw or sketch on the spot and their expressionist art style was able to capture the event in an alternate way to a photograph or television video.
Esquire ran an article in its April 1959 issue Kennedy's Last Chance To Be President. The article was positive about Kennedy's chances to become the Democratic nominee. Robert Weaver was assigned to illustrate the story.
Weaver would sketch on location and then choose to paint some scenes from sketches for the magazine. Other drawings were published just as black and white sketches, such as this drawing of a TV interview in front of a mock-up of the Capitol seen through a window. Weaver includes the details of the location including the wooden supports holding up the stage window, the numbers on the clapboard, and the specific script on the teleprompter.
Franklin McMahon, another illustrator known for reportage drawings, covered 13 U.S. presidental elections starting with Kennedy's in 1960. He would go on to attend every Democratic and Republican convention from through 2008. McMahon also preferred to draw on-the-spot and was known for being able to start a drawing without first blocking out the sketch or other pre-planning.
After Kennedy's death, magazines still continued to feature articles about the slain president. During the 1964 convention season, Look ran a painting of Kennedy in the 1960 convention by Norman Rockwell. Rockwell, who wanted to expand beyond the Americana-style drawing that the Saturday Evening Post desired, signed on to draw for Look in December 1963.
In 1965, around the two-year anniversary of the assassination, Look serialized If Kennedy Had Lived, written by JFK's advisor and speechwriter, Ted Sorenson. The last of the parts ran in October 19, 1965 and featured a painting by Bernie Fuchs. Fuchs had the opportunity to meet Kennedy just before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Eight months earlier, a Fuchs' painting of Kennedy was used as a tribute to the President in an advertisement for John Hancock Life Insurance. Fuchs' modern, impressionist style fit well with articles and advertisements focused on remembering the late president.
Almost two decades after the assassination, a five-hour miniseries on Kennedy's life aired on NBC, starring Martin Sheen as JFK. TV Guide ran a cover featuring the former president and former first-lady on the week before the miniseries began airing. The cover was illustrated by Richard Amsel, who would end up creating 40 covers for TV Guide in his lifetime.
The Weaver illustrations are part of the Robert Weaver Collection. All other images are from the Walt Reed Illustration Archive.
Reed, Walt. The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. The Society of Illustrators, 2001.
Rockwell and Race, 1963-1968. The Pop History Dig, 2011.
The World of Vatican II, An Artist's Report Featuring the Paintings and Drawings of Franklin McMahon. Catholic Theological Union, 2012.
When 60-year old Diane Nyad recently swam from Cuba to Florida, there were plenty of pictures to be seen in the news footage. We saw video footage of her swimming and treading water by the boat, as well as shots of her exiting the water in Florida. We know that her team was taking pictures of this historic moment. (Now if the team had only taken continuous video footage of the entire 110 mile long swim, there wouldn't be allegations that she cheated.) In this day and age, we expect this type of video coverage.
from A Girl Challenges The Sea, v. 11, p. 79.
No pictures of her in the water swimming. Odd.
from A Girl Challenges The Sea, v. 11, p. 74.
The image that the America series chose to use was a painting by Cliff Condak. It's the very first thing you see in the article, right before the title page.
A Google search revealed that there were pictures of Ederle crossing the Channel. Sports Illustrated For Women has posted an image credited to Associated Press. History.com has posted a photo credited to Bettmann/CORBIS. The pictures in the Ederle articles are credited to UPI ; however, an article on Dizzy Dean, just before the Ederly article, used an AP picture, so we know the publishers of the America series were getting permission for some Associated Press photos.
from What For?, v. 11, p. 81.
So why the Condak illustration?
Were the publishers unable to get permission for the "in-the-water" photos? Did they decide that they didn't like the photos of her swimming? Or was there another, more artistic reason? We may never know the answer.
The series used illustrations from many artists, including Condak and another MGHL artist, Robert Weaver. Although called "The Illustrated Diary", the use of the word "illustrated" just means that pictures are included, not specifically what we think of as "illustrations." Most of the pictures in the multi-volume set are, in fact, photographs. It seemed that the publishers preferred photographs.
illustration of Al Capone originally planned for v. 10.
One of Condak's illustrations for the Gangsters section of the series is of Al Capone leaving one of his establishments. Condak has noted on the bottom of the image the corresponding volume. However, the Capone article in that volume only uses pictures.
The use of the illustration in the article adds come color to the book, after pages and pages of black & white photos. It also captures the emotion of the moment. The expressionist brushstrokes of the water look more dramatic than a black & white photo of the water. With the water being drawn on a diagonal, there is a sense that the swimmer has an "uphill" battle to succeed in this challenge.
from Jesse Owens : Golden Boy Of The Thirties, v. 12, p. 17.
The Ederle illustration wasn't the only sports-related image drawn by Condak in the series. An article on Jesse Owens includes one painting: Owens running off the page, as if caught in slow motion. The article does include one black & white photo of Owens racing, but most of the photos are of Hitler.
The last line of article is"But maybe the biggest thrill Jesse got was chasing Adolph out of his own stadium for it was to be a long time before anyone chased Hitler out of anywhere again." While the publishers may have been able to get another photo of Owens running, it was more emotional and symbolic to use the illustration with the golden hue as the "last word."
from How I Shall Beat Joe Lewis, v. 11, p. 44.
Another Condak sports drawing is for an article on how German boxer Max Schmeling successfully beat Joe Louis in a 1936 match. By creating a diagram of Schmeling's strategy, the drawing captures the thought process before the fight and informs the viewer in more detail than a textual account would. The quick, light lines also capture the fast intensity of boxing moves. Plus, the color illustration is possibly more visually interesting than of a photo of the actual fight (which is not included in the article).
While both painted illustrations and photographs have their place in recording and recapturing history, they provide different visual information in the retelling of the historical event.
Modern Graphic History Library has many of Cliff Condak's original artwork used in America : An Illustrated Diary (plus many of Robert Weaver's artwork for this series, as well). MGHL has five volumes of the set (v. 3, 6, 10-12) which include Condak's artwork ; the volumes featuring Weaver's artwork (v. 1, 8-9) are available through MOBIUS.
Churchill, Allen. America : An Illustrated Diary Of Its Most Exciting Years. A.F.E. Press, 1972-1973.
Pegler, Westbrook. A Girl Challenges The Sea, p. 74-79.
Pegler, Westbrook. What For?, p. 80-86.
Schmeling, Max. How I Shall Beat Joe Lewis, p. 41-45.
Jesse Owens : Golden Boy Of The Thirties, p. 10-17.
Robert Weaver would have been 89 today. Born in Pittsburgh, he lived until the age of 70, and was a pioneer in transforming illustration from the realistic to the expressive and abstract.
Up until Weaver's time, the typical illustration method was to draw a realistic depiction of a scene, often using models or photographs. Landscapes or models' features would then be altered to create an ideal, artistic image. Weaver believed in drawing and sketching from real life, without modifications. One example of this is his Spring Training sketches for a 1962 Sports Illustrated assignment : here Weaver draws the players and fans as he sees them.
By the 1950s, modern art such as expressionism and impressionism were influencing illustrators. Illustration no longer was just for depicting a scene, but evoking emotional responses Weaver used his drawings as a way to depict current culture on themes previously not illustrated, such as poverty, race, and crime.
Weaver studied at various schools including the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the Art Students League in New York, and the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Venice. Weaver taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York for over 35 years, and created one of the subway posters that advertised the school. Below is the artwork without the poster text.
Artwork for School of Visual Arts subway poster, 1983.
In addition to his sketches and paintings, Weaver also would combine collage techniques with his paintings. He even experimented with creating two-dimensional art that could be viewed three-dimensionally. In order to see the image in 3-D, you will need to look at the same way you would look at a Magic Eye 3-D poster, popular in the 1990s.
If you would like to try out viewing the original 3-D artwork, stop by the Modern Graphic History Library. To learn more about Robert Weaver, check out the finding aid.
Heller, Steven and Chwast, Seymour. Illustration, A Visual History. New York: Abrams, 2008.
Heller, Steven, ed. Innovators of American Illustration. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986.
Lately, there have been a lot of gangsters popping up in the news.
Illustration by Cliff Condak, unknown date.
In Boston, there's the trial of James 'Whitey' Bulger while in suburban Detroit, the FBI used a mobster's tip to justify digging up a field, in a continuing search for Jimmy Hoffa. Add to that the revival of interest in The Sopranos because of James Gandolfini's untimely death, there are gangsters everywhere....including Modern Graphic History Library.
MGHL has uncovered several gangsters we found hiding out in our artwork. Here is their line-up.
Illustration of Lt. Charles Becker by Cliff Condak, unknown date.
In 1912, a police lieutenant, Charles Becker, was extorting money from illegal casinos. If casino owners paid him, he promised the police would not interfere in shutting down the casino operation.
Illustration of Herman Rosenthal by Cliff Condak, unknown date.
One owner, Herman Rosenthal, informed the press and the police about Becker's extortion. In retaliation, Becker hired the Lenox Avenue Gang to kill Rosenthal.
Illustration of Dago Frank by Cliff Condak, unknown date.
Four gangsters, including Dago Frank, were seen shooting Rosenthal and were quickly arrested. Frank and the others then revealed Becker's involvement. Becker and Frank both received the death penalty.
Illustration of Dillinger shoot-out and escape by Robert Weaver, for Unforgettable Crimes, Life Magazine, September 9, 1957.
In April 1934, bank-robber John Dillinger was one of America's most wanted. He hid out at Little Bohemia Lodge in the woods of Wisconsin, blending in with the other guests. The FBI was tipped off of Dillinger's whereabouts and surrounded the lodge. After a gun-battle, Dillinger and his lieutenant, Baby Face Nelson escaped into the woods. Three months later, Dillinger would be shot and killed.
Illustration of Al Capone in front of one of his clubs by Cliff Condak, for vol. 10 (Crime) of unknown book.
One of the most well-known gangster shootings was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929. A north side Irish gang, led by Bugs Moran, was interfering in the bootleg liquor market, which had been controlled by Al Capone's south side Italian gang.
Illustration of St. Valentine's Day Massacre by Robert Weaver, for Unforgettable Crimes, Life Magazine, September 9, 1957.
In retaliation, seven members of Moran's gang were lured into a Chicago garage and shot. The suspected shooters who Capone used were connected to a St. Louis gang, Egan's Rats.
Magazines and books would often run articles or sections on infamous crimes and hire illustrators, such as Cliff Condak and Robert Weaver, to recreate the crime scenes. For more information on illustrators Cliff Condak or Robert Weaver, check out the finding aids.
"Unforgettable Crimes", Life Magazine, September 9, 1957.
Don't forget that this Sunday is Father's Day. If you are still looking for a gift to give your dad, why not go with a tried and true, traditional gift: a necktie!
Al Parker fiction illustration for Girl With A Briefcase by Ruth Lyons for Good Housekeeping, September 1956.
T.D. Skidmore fiction illustration for A Diamond Setting by Octavus Roy Cohen from American Weekly, January 1932.
Illustration of unidentified man by Robert Weaver, undated.
Illustration of unidentified man by Jack Unruh, undated.
llustration of unidentified man by Robert Andrew Parker, undated.
Just remember, the color and pattern of the tie should coordinate with the shirt and jacket.
Old Gold Cigarette advertisement by Robert O. Reid, Colliers, November 15, 1941.
Best of luck to you in your tie selecting. Happy Father's Day!
The T.D. Skidmore and Robert O. Reid illustrations are from the Charles Craver Collection. The remaining images are from the Al Parker Collection, the Robert Andrew Parker Collection, the Jack Unruh Collection, and the Robert Weaver Collection.

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