As we continue 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.
Violet Oakley
Trained by Howard Pyle and influenced by the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, her career spanned illustration, murals, and stained glass. She was one of a group of prominent women artists from the early 20th century known as the Red Rose Girls. Her largest commission consisted of 43 murals that still stand in the Pennsylvania state capital.
Tim O’Brien
High concept meets intricate detail in the award winning work of Tim O’Brien. An acclaimed illustrator whose work has graced publications as esteemed as Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic, Tim is an illustrator who pushes realism into new dimensions.
Glen Orbik
With brushwork that could’ve painted by Loomis, Sundblom or Elvgren, Glen is the new king of pulp covers. Bold compositions, intense colors, and voluptuous women all add up to some delicious eye candy.
Eric Orchard
A dark whimsy permeates the work of Eric Orchard. Primarily working in the realms of comics and children’s books, his work is populated by endearing animals, chunky robots and shaggy children, all of whom seem to have taken a step outside of an innocent fever dream.
Katsuhiro Otomo
Perhaps one of the most important manga artist of the last twenty years his epic work Akira spearheaded the infiltration of Japanese comics into the American mainstream. Dense urban sprawl and cinematic action were the hallmarks of Otomo’s work, who now focuses his attention primarily on writing and directing films.
C O L O P H O N
Type this week cheats a little with a design by typographer and calligrapher Oswald Bruce Cooper. The distinctive Cooper Black dates from 1922, saw a huge revival in the late 60s and 70s, and is one of the few typefaces with a video biography.
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.
