|
|
Ad Code: 3
|
from Auction House Records.
"He saluted me with an oddness in his look. 'Is it Sir Edward?' he asked in surprise," illustration for H. B. Marriott Watson's "The Babes in the Wood," Sunday Magazine, December 27, 1914, p 7.
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
|
|
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Well-known illustrator Joseph Clement Coll was born in 1881, the son of an Irish bookbinder. Self-taught from the works of Vierge, Pyle, and Abbey, his talent was such that he was taken on as an apprentice newspaper artist on the New York American at the age of seventeen. He quickly learned the skills of a reporter and was sent to Chicago for additional training. In 1901, he returned to New York where he worked on the newly formed Sunday North American. After seeing his works, the editor of the paper rewarded him with challenging assignments, to which he often contributed design and lettering.
The ability to reproduce pen drawings without engravings was a relatively modern advancement in this era. Until the 1880s, most art reproduced in line was drawn in pencil, on wood, and printed from the engraved wood block. Photography was initially used to only transfer the image to the wood. It took the insight and involvement of Daniel Vierge to adapt the process to the reproduction of his un-engraved drawing. It was this revolution, about twelve years earlier, which influenced Coll. It is taken for granted today that the brush, pen, and ink are artistic tools, but Coll was breaking new ground and helping to define a medium. His innovations were popular and dramatic.
Coll was soon drawing for Colliers, Everybodys, the Associated Sunday Magazine, and others. He illustrated wonderful stories by the most popular authors of the day: Arthur Conan Doyles Sir Nigel and "The Lost World", Sax Rohmers Fu Manchu, many stories by Talbot Mundy, "The Messiah of the Cylinder" by Victor Rousseau, "Tales of Africa" by Edgar Wallace, and even a collection of stories from Dickens in 1910. Other artists were exploring the possibilities of pen and brush, but Coll was setting the standards. He was a prolific artist, but the majority of his work appeared in the ephemeral world of magazines.
In 1921, Coll died at the age of forty-one from appendicitis. In twenty years, he defined the look of adventure illustration. The pulp magazines would later be full of his admirers. Fu Manchu and the other Eastern menaces were drawn from his design. J. R. Flanagan, and others who succeeded him, sported their debt and their admiration proudly. When the pulps gave way to the comics, the next generation of fanatics discovered and learned from his pioneering work. Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, and hundreds more have felt the touch of his magic.
(Information for the biography above is taken in part from writings from the book, "The Illustrator In America, 1880-1980", A Century of Illustration, by Walt and Roger Reed; and from Bud Plant Illustrated Books.)
|
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|