Lewis Parker, Canadian Illustrator

I'm following up last week's series on Tom McNeely with a look at a few more Canadian illustrators.

Today, a look at the work of Lewis Parker.



Parker had a tremendous gift for creating diverse work.



Just looking at these few examples from some early '60s issues of Maclean's magazine...



... it's hard to believe that they were all done by the same person.



In the '50s and '60s, Parker drew countless illustrations for MacLean's. Sometimes they were for full blown articles.





More often they were small spots for the magazine's news and reviews sections.





He often drew five or more small spots in a single issue of the magazine...



... and those spots were rarely all done in the same style.





Lewis Parker was born in 1926. At age 16, with three years of instruction at Central Technical School, he began his professional art career as a junior apprentice at a Toronto art studio called Rabjohn Illustrators. His pay: three dollars a week.



There he met - and learned from - many artists who went on to become successful in their own right. But of all those with whom he worked, Parker credits Bert Grassik, a Bert Grassick, a staff illustrator who also did political cartoons for Maclean's and the Toronto Telegram (and someone I previously wrote about on Today's Inspiration) as his single biggest influence.



Editorial cartooning was often in the mix of Parker's assignments - he did many for both Maclean's and the Toronto Star - and these examples demonstrate his obvious skill in that area of expertise.





You can read much more about Lewis Parker and see many more examples of his later painted artworks at lewisparker.ca

Matthew Parker also created a 30 minute retrospective of his father's art which you can find on youtube:

Tom McNeely's First Day Covers

During the 1970s Tom McNeely began illustrating stamps for Canada Post. The client was so impressed by Tom's work they recommended him to Unicover Corporation of Cheyenne, Wyoming.



In 1978 Tom created his first painting for Unicover. Over the next twenty-eight years, he painted four hundred First Day Covers for the company.



Tom said, "Unicover gave me the freedom to research, compose and paint my images. They didn't demand preliminary studies for the covers. This allowed me to give full energy to the finished paintings."



Having had the privilege of sharing a studio space with Tom for several years, I recall watching in awe as he would develop a series of illustrations for Unicover. His pencil sketches alone were a marvel. Here are a few which I rescued from the trash.











And here's one of the finished pieces.



In September of 2011, an exhibition of Tom's Philatelic 1st Day Covers opened in the Great Hall of the Toronto Arts and Letters Club.





Sixty-six of Tom's paintings were displayed.



At the show opening, Tom spoke about the process of researching his subjects and how it was a time-honoured tradition among artists. He spoke of the great lengths Messonier, Napoleon's favourite historical painter, went to during his day to accurately portray the movement of horse. He talked about how N.C. Wyeth would hire local people to model for his paintings of "Robin Hood" or "Treasure Island" and how film maker Ken Burns, being unhindered by ties to any large studios was able to take whatever time he needed to properly "know, compose and produce his work."



"All three did whatever they had to do to gather information and to execute their art with confidence and passion."



"Most mornings I could hardly wait to get to my studio to work on my latest commission," said Tom. "I felt privileged to spend those years on many kinds of projects - and especially on the Philatelic assignments."



"I loved the process."


If you're interested in seeing more of Tom's artwork and reading about his career, just click the links below:

Tom McNeely, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Tom McNeely's Automotive Art

"Automotive work was the financial backbone of the studios... when I was in my 20s and 30s," writes Tom McNeely in his book, Tom McNeely, 50 Years of Visual Arts



"My friend and fellow illustrator Will Davies and I produced many of the auto industry's catalogues, posters and newspaper ads"



After all these years, Tom was unsure if he actually did the art on this specific series of ads (although I'm quite sure he did). When I spoke with Tom earlier today he said, "Will and I didn't work together then - we were at competing studios - but we both worked on all the big automotive accounts for all the ad agencies."



Tom laughed, "The salesmen would come running through the studio says, "The client from Ford is coming through - put that Chrysler artwork away!"

* I previously wrote about Tom's automotive artwork and that period in his career. For those interested in seeing more of this type of work and reading Tom's recollections, click here.

Tom McNeely and National Geographic's "Making of America"

During the 1980s, Tom McNeely illustrated a series of 17 "Making of America" maps for National Geographic. Today being Independence Day, I thought these three originals from the series, which I happen to own, might be a nice way to celebrate the occasion.

Here, with Tom's acetate overlay still in place, is the "Making of America" art for New England.





I was able to find a scan online of the printed map title area for comparison.



Below, the original art from the "Making of America" map of Texas.



A couple of close-ups...





Finally, here is what I think might be the art for a "Making of America" map of Virginia. No overlay or pencil notes on the back of this one... but still; a really fine piece of work by a fantastic illustrator.



Happy July 4th to all our American friends and family!

The Linear Art of Tom McNeely

Canadian illustrator Tom McNeely is a gifted painter. His preferred medium is watercolour.



During the more than fifty years of his career however, Tom often worked in a variety of line art styles, from the very sketchy reportage style shown in yesterday's post, to a variety of loose, textural, or technical styles.







Sometimes Tom would experiment with linear treatments that might better reflected the mood of the article he was illustrating...





Sometimes he experimented simply to satisfy his naturally restless creativity.





What has always impressed me most is Tom's ability to marry a lively energetic quality to the accuracy of excellent draftsmanship. Here are a few more examples with an appropriately "summer fun" theme.









If you're interested in seeing more of Tom's artwork and reading about his career, just click on the links below:

Tom McNeely, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Some Tom McNeely Art for Canada Day

Yesterday was Canada Day (and we're celebrating with a day off work today) but, as this is a labour of love, work never stops here at TI Central.

So I thought I'd present something relevant to the occasion: here's a terrific historical series describing the founding and early history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ("The Mounties") by one of Canada's top illustrators of the 20th century, Tom McNeely.



These illustrations appeared in a book called Historic Headlines, published during Canada's Centennial, 1967, by McClelland & Stewart.

In his introduction to the book, editor Pierre Berton wrote, "This book contains no photographs. We have preferred, instead, to ask contemporary Canadian illustrators to act as if they were on an urgent journalistic assignment - rushed to the scene of each incident with pad and pencil in the manner of a war artist..."



"... finishing certain work at their leisure..."



"... retaining the rest of it in sketchbook form."



"The result, we hope, is a new kind of Canadian history book."



Berton continues, "Certainly it is designed to tell the non-academic reader a good deal about the kind of country this has been over the past century."



I can assure you, editor Berton's efforts were successful - at least for this non-academic Canadian reader.



Since this blog concerns itself chiefly with the history of illustration - and not with Canadian history - I won't go into the details surrounding the formation of the RCMP (or "North West Mounted Rifles", as it was originally intended to be called).



Suffice to say, it is a remarkable story of larger-than-life characters engaged in harrowing circumstances and undertakings far more daunting than anything you or I will ever encounter in our genteel everyday lives. I was amazed to read what had transpired in the early days of our country.



Berton writes, "I find it both significant and ironic that every one of these true Canadian tales could provide the background for a major motion picture... but we modest Canadians have tended to downgrade our own past to the point where even strangers have failed to sense the excitement of it."



Sadly, that's too true. But hopefully these great illustrations by Tom McNeely hint at some of that exciting history and inspire some of you to seek out these stories on your own. For my part, I'll continue presenting more of the artwork in this book on future occasions.

* I had the great fortune of sharing studio space with Tom McNeely for several years. He's not only a gifted artist, he's a warm and intelligent person - a real gentleman I'm very honoured to call my friend.



If you're interested in seeing more of Tom's artwork and reading about his career, just click on the links below:

Tom McNeely, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5