Month: January 2018

Get Your Popcorn….

Amsel quickly found popularity within New York’s art scene, and his illustrations caught the attention of Barry Manilow, then a young singer/songwriter named who was working with Bette Midler, a newly emerging entertainer in cabaret clubs and piano bars. Manilow introduced the two, and it was quickly decided that Amsel should do the cover of her first Atlantic Records album. The cover, for The Divine Miss M proved to be one of the most ubiquitous of the year. More album covers and posters soon followed, as did a series of magazine ads for designer Oleg Cassini.^{[citation needed]}

His movie posters commissions included some of the most important and popular films of the 1970s, including The Champ, Chinatown, Julia, The Last Picture Show, The Last Tycoon, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Muppet Movie, Murder on the Orient Express, Nashville, Papillon, The Shootist, and The Sting. (The latter’s poster design paid homage to the painting style of J. C. Leyendecker, evoking both his “Arrow Collar Man” and his covers for The Saturday Evening Post.)^{[citation needed]}

Though brief, Amsel’s career was prolific. By the decade’s end his movie posters alone matched or exceeded the creative output of many of his contemporaries. His portrait of comedian Lily Tomlin was featured on the cover of Time, and is now housed in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. In keeping with the magazine’s stringent deadlines, Amsel’s illustration was created in only two or three days.

^Gallery:

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Amsel

Extended Gallery:

http://www.adammcdaniel.com/RichardAmsel2.htm

Rockwell Before Rockwell…

As the premier cover illustrator for the enormously popular Saturday Evening Post for much of the first half of the 20th century, Leyendecker’s work both reflected and helped mold many of the visual aspects of the era’s culture in America. The mainstream image of Santa Claus as a jolly fat man in a red fur-trimmed coat was popularized by Leyendecker, as was the image of the New Year Baby.^[22] The tradition of giving flowers as a gift on Mother’s Day was started by Leyendecker’s May 30, 1914 Saturday Evening Post cover depicting a young bellhop carrying hyacinths. It was created as a commemoration of President Woodrow Wilson‘s declaration of Mother’s Day as an official holiday that year.

Leyendecker was a chief influence upon, and friend of, Norman Rockwell, who was a pallbearer at Leyendecker’s funeral. In particular, the early work of Norman Rockwell for the Saturday Evening Post bears a strong superficial resemblance to that of Leyendecker. While today it is generally accepted that Norman Rockwell established the best-known visual images of Americana, in many cases they are derivative of Leyendecker’s work, or reinterpretations of visual themes established by Rockwell’s idol.

Gallery:

Wikipedia Page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Leyendecker

More Info:

https://americanillustration.org/project/jc-leyendecker/

Extended Gallery:

http://www.americanartarchives.com/leyendecker,jc.htm