As we near the end of our journey through the alphabet some of you may have noticed a slight itching in the back of your eyes. Maybe you’ve felt hunger pains, not in your belly, but at the midpoint of your head. That’s where your visual cortex is found and that hunger signals the beginning stages of art addiction. Other symptoms include a compulsive need to discover all the names of teachers and friends of a particular well-known artist, exploding bookcases due to the weight of too many art books, and a deep knowledge of auction houses and their scheduled public viewings. Lastly, hives.
Don’t worry, the addiction is relatively benign and plenty of support groups exist. Just remember, it’s a scavenger hunt which has no list and never ends.
Note: Click on images to see them larger and in much higher quality.
John Watkiss
Dramatic composition viewed from extreme angles meet a rendering style straight from the golden age of illustration. John Watkiss is an incredible talent whose work is rarely seen outside the film industry. His work has influenced numerous films from Disney’s Tarzan to Guy RItchie’s recent adaption of Sherlock Holmes.
Sam Weber
One of the leading book cover and editorial illustrators whose award-winning work is often dark, elegant, and sometimes disturbing. Sam’s delicate rendering and subtle use of color is destined to earn him a place in the Valhalla of illustration.
Claire Wendling
She began her career in France as a comic artist and eventually moved on to shaping the character designs of numerous animated films. A master of using simple flowing lines to encapsulate living gestural form, Claire is an icon and an inspiration to the animation industry.
Kent Williams
Kent Williams is a comic artist and illustrator who pushed the boundaries of style and technique within the comic world. His illustrations range from simple line drawings to photo collages to large oil paintings. His focus has now shifted to fine art, where his trademark distorted figures occupy spaces that blur between the real and the purely expressionistic.
Jerome Witkin
Twin to the famous photographer Joel Peter Witkin, Jerome is a contemporary narrative painter obsessed with the darker side of human nature. His complex paintings confront everything from the degradation of drugs to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Each work is usually a multi panel sequence that could almost be seen as a wall-sized comic.
Bernie Wrightson
Inspired by Frazetta and the masters of pen and ink illustration from the turn of the century, Bernie remains a legend of the comic industry whose distinctive inking approach and dramatic figure work earned him a reputation as the king of illustrated horror. Arguably, his masterpiece is the group of lush illustrations rendered for Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein that must be seen to be believed.
NC Wyeth
Father of fine artist Andrew Wyeth and easily Howard Pyle’s most famous pupil. A compositional master whose dynamic images defined the look of adventure stories for generations. For many his name is synonymous with the word illustration.
C O L O P H O N
Justus Erich Walbaum was a German printer and designer of Neoclassical and Romantic typefaces around the turn of the 19th century. Walbaum Standard, from the Berthold type foundry, is based on some of his surviving punches.
We are Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon. We live in a pocket-sized apartment in Brooklyn where we collect neat, weird things. Our home is abundant with books, old furniture, mismatching tea cups, and a cat named Cipher. We both illustrate stuff for money so we can continue to invent stories, buy shoelaces, watch puppet shows, and eat sandwiches.
