Lore Eckelberry, Pop Art, and Fanart

[paramnesia]

In only recently heard of Lore Eckelberry, who's art includes pop art-esque image based on anime and manga. Her website is here (http://www.artistlore.com/), and her works sell for thousands.

She takes the strength of the characters and reinterprets it in a bold series of colors that express her very unique form of sensitivity to the cartoon characterization that she loves.

Where does copyright fall in all this? Her images aren't just inspired by comics and picture books, but appear to be copies of panels she finds appealing. I suppose it's all on the legal up and up since she's selling her works and no one is complaining, but it seems wrong to me.

On a possibly related topic, is this akin to selling fanart? I never was sure just how legal it is. A lot of people draw their favorite characters and include them in portfolios, but at what point should a creator be concerned?

[Anid Maro]

Somehow I imagine a student in an art history class reading about Roy Lichtenstein...

"You mean I can trace comic panels and sell it for tons of cash? FANTASTIC!!!"

Used to think there was no one artist less original than Lichtenstein... and then here we have someone who copied Lichtenstein. I guess that's the only way to sink any lower.

[Mirana]

Traditionally the Japanese do not have an issue with fan created works based on copyrighted characters because they see it as free advertising. You can go to whole sections of Tokyo that have nothing but huge stores of fan-created comics. Cracking down on that is sort of biting the hand that feeds you. It also helps to train whole new generations of comic artists.

In this specific case, I see one piece ("Black Coat") I recognize instantly as being part of a cover by CLAMP. CLAMP's artists started out as fan comic artists before becoming pros. I have heard that they're touchy about seeing their art used without permission, but I don't know how they feel about fanwork. Considering they came from it, it's likely they'd ignore it.

On the bigger artistic-worth scale? I'd say this stuff is pretty low for me. If you saw this on DA you'd probably laugh. They're poor copies with no added value of their own. Even the other art just looks like photos she sent through a contrast filter and projected. But hey...she's doing it and making money. Obviously there's a market.......for high school assignments.

[Jasonwclark]

Used to think there was no one artist less original than Lichtenstein... and then here we have someone who copied Lichtenstein. I guess that's the only way to sink any lower.


I think Lichtenstein gets a bad wrap. I used to be a hater too, and I'm not a big fan of pop art generally, buy my friend Ian is all about the guy so I've come in contact with quite a bit of his work over the years. I had to stare at a poster of this one (6'x6' ridiculous) hanging in my place for a like a year, when we lived together in college.

418895

Now my girlfriend has this one hanging up on her side of the living room, so he's been pretty much inescapable for me. Now I'm just resigned to it.

418896


I've come to accept him, and the whole pop art Mid-century thing (along with pink stuff, my little pony, black frames, and a lot of other whatnots I never would expected to find in my home when I was a bachelor.) Mad Men is a good show too, so what can you do you know? Hard to fight it. :)

I suppose the essential idea behind Lichtenstein's work, when you strip away all the rest of it away, is that comics are as deserving of critical recognition and a claim to fine arts status, as any modernist painting. Like pretty much everyone else who made a name for themselves in the Pop art movement at the time, Lichtenstein's work is more concerned with aesthetic theory and the philosophy of Art (with the capital A), than it is with anything else. People go for it, because it blurs the distinction between the commercial arts and fine arts. Also, you have to figure that this came at a time when the Museum/Gallery establishment was not particularly interested in Comic artists, or the illustrative arts at large, so there's that too.

The scandal (http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html) is that he used other peoples' works to make his basic point, often just changing the scale of the image and the context in which it was presented. Jack Kirby is cooler of course, but I'm sure Lichtenstein knew that too, which makes him seem like an alright guy to me (less bad anyway). I imagine he was probably more surprised by the success of the idea than anyone else was. The only reason we know his name now, is because all those critics and theorists propped him as their straw man and then lit him on fire.

[DavePalumbo]

I'd do better to wait for arttorny to chime in here, but from my understanding, there's no law against selling an original piece of art containing copyright characters. Reproductions are another story for certain (prints, books, etc.) but I believe that, at least here in the US, original paintings are fair game.

[Anid Maro]

That pretty well sums up my beef with Lichtenstein.

The whole idea that he was just trying to give comics the recognition they deserve kinda loses credit with me when you note that he kept that recognition for himself. I mean, it's one thing to use a comic style and try to present it to the fine art world, or even emulate a specific artist's style for your own subject, but it's another thing to practically trace a panel toss your name on it. That just doesn't sit right with me.

But hey, he was before my time and maybe I'm just judging him too harshly by more recent standards. Nonetheless, whether he's actually a hack or I'm just bullheaded, I've been unable to find any explanation that justifies Lichtenstein's work for me.

And by extension this sums up what I think of the work by this Lore Eckelberry fellow. I am correct in my understanding that Lore is basically copying the panel exactly, only modifying it in very minor ways, right? Wouldn't want to misplace my scorn, y'know?

Edit: Incidentally, this thread has a lot of tie ins with a certain other thread (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=130932) floating around on the front page here. Kinda interesting to think about where ripping or homage, or whatever word is used to describe this, is appropriate. Is it ever appropriate to copy like that? How explicit must acknowledgement of your source be? Is it okay to make money in this manner?

[Jasonwclark]

The thing is if you look at Lore Eckelberry's website, she basically just has a lot of paintovers and interior design type stuff. Some mention of Fauvism under her bio, but I don't see much in the way of intellectual scaffolding to prop the work up. Lichtenstein is the same I suppose, but his relative fame and place in the history of the New York art scene, obscures the basic issues somewhat.


For Eckelberry though, check out this one for example. I don't feel bad reposting her image for obvious reasons. We're all hypocrits here right. :)
This one is listed under 'Latest Works', I'm pretty sure it's Snoop Dogg.
418911
Not bad. I don't know if its good, but Snoop Dogg's alright by me. "Gin and Juice" over "Sensual Seduction," but everyone's gotta eat, so we'll let it slide.

Here's another one from the 'Freestyle' section.
418912

There are also some L. Ron Hubbard quotes scattered about her gallery/blog, and a lot of unecessary website animations. I doubt she's making thousands, or if she is, then the people who are buying it probably aren't terribly concerned with the investment. Also, before you judge this gal too harshly, check out a website like this (http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/) which probably employs a number of traditional painters doing much the same thing. I'm sure they don't get the credit, but the money's still there I guess.

Basically what these people are selling, beyond the physical painting itself, is an aesthetic judgement. Its like 'look at what I think is cool' for people who don't have the time or inclination to figure that out (let alone create it) for themselves.
You gotta take it with a grain of salt.

[Anid Maro]

Also, before you judge this gal too harshly, check out a website like this (http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/) which probably employs a number of traditional painters doing much the same thing. I'm sure they don't get the credit, but the money's still there I guess.

It's interesting you bring up that site, I'd never been to it myself but it reminds me of that story about the village in China whose main export is copies of famous artworks much like the site you link.

The thing is, and this is where I draw a distinction, the artists working for that site and other similar organizations aren't selling their work they're selling Van Gogh, or Monet, or Klimt, or Rembrandt, or Da Vinci, or whatever famous artist they are replicating.

This is an old trade dating back to antiquity when Romans would make copies of their most favorite Greek statues, people want their own copy of the original and are willing to pay for materials and labor. I've got no problem there.

But in the cases of Roy Lichtenstein and Lore Eckelberry they aren't claiming to be selling reproductions of comic panels, they're claiming to be selling the art of Lichtenstein and Eckelberry respectively. Furthermore one has to consider that even if they weren't claiming the work of others as their own it should be considered that it is well within the capabilities of the people who actually own the art to make any reproductions desired. I'm not sure the same could be said for Gogh, Monet, or Klimt.

So not only are artists like Lichtenstein and Eckelberry ursuping the art of others as their own, but they are arguably taking business away from those who hold the rights to the work being copied.

Perhaps as you say, Eckelberry should be taken with a grain of salt. However Lichtenstein achieved a great deal of fame doing pretty much what Eckelberry is. Philosophy aside, as I see it they are seeking fame and fortune through artistic plagiarism. That is what grates with me and causes me to judge so harshly.

[Jasonwclark]

Since I'm vegetating in my Pre-Comic Con warm up mode, I suppose I can keep it going. Nothing to do but lounge about for the next couple hours and relax, before braving the outdoors to buy more B pencils, since Blicks is sure to get raided. :)


I'm interested in the differences between allusion and homage, commentary and copy, where to draw the distinctions and things of that sort.
The gray area is fascinating to me, especially since so much of early western painting involved this practice of learning through reproduction/duplication. Allusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion) is something I've also spent a lot of time on in school, since I studied comparative mythology and classical lit, and that's pretty much all it is. Here is the main problem as I see it... Basically, in order for an allusion to work properly (whether in literature, film, satire, parody etc.) you can't state the source explicitly. If you did then it would cease to be an allusion, and you'd lose that subtle nod between insiders that makes the whole thing work.

So here's a question along these lines: Which issue is most relevant in separating an allusion, homage, or what have you, from a more insidius 'out and out' bite?

Is it the money?
The subsequent fame/notoriety?
The medium and process of creation/recreation itself?
The passage of time?
What if the credit/source is acknowledged or discussed by the author elsewhere (as it often is with writers), but not explicitly stated in the work itself?
Or, as a corollary to that, how would you handle "quotations" in the visual arts?

People can say that its different with books, or films, or music, but I'm not sure it is. When I think of what's happening right now (in film and music specifically, but also in the visual arts), I think it's mirroring what happened to Western Literature over the course of the last 500 years or so. In the time since books have been widely distributed and accessible, you get this piling on of allusions and references to older and older books. Take someone like Shakespeare, who hits at right about this time; a guy who is basically collecting older plays and stories and representing them for a more contemporary audience. He borrows from his predecessors to do his thing, then someone else comes along and references back to it, and again, and again, until eventually Kurosawa gets a hold of it or the Simpsons writers.

You have this kind of fragmentation and reassembling of the tradition poetry over and over again, until, by the time we get to the 20th century, Western Lit is like this big messy collage of everything and nothing all at the same time. Writing and general literacy have not been around very long, but art and music have been even less accessible. Until recently, only the very wealthy or powerful had direct access to important painted images, and if you wanted to hear a song, someone had to sing it for you. We've only been able to record and widely distribute these things for maybe the last 100-150 years, and look how much its changed already. The easier it is for people to experience these things (the individual artworks I mean), the faster the allusions move. Allusions in books for example, (as wtih epic poems), were slow to make the rounds initially, but started to really take off once the printing press made the stories easier to reproduce and disseminate. Even going back further than that, Virgil makes extensive use of Homer, just as Dante does of Virgil, and Milton of Dante; to the point where you can't even understand what's going on in a given story without understanding the one that came before it. The new mediums seem to be encouraging a similar trend in direction, except that here the process is accelerated, on account of how much easier it is to get at the information. Check out the way samples work in Rap music, its not so very different from the way they work in Classical composition. And just look what's happened to Drama since the advent of film. If its not a remake, its an adaptation, or else a commentary on other plays/films or the medium itself. Now that we have the internet at our disposal and vast public libraries, I think its starting to achieve a critical mass. I like to believe its going to crescendo into something unimaginably cool, but maybe it'll just stagnate in Byzantine fashion with endless commentaries and footnotes; or perhaps the bottom will cave out on us and send the whole edifice crashing down. Either way, its still a pretty interesting time to be alive.


I sometimes try to imagine what a bibliography of a painting might look like, but it keeps me up way past my bedtime, way too often. :)

______________________



Here's an amusing quotation, for anyone who's ever hated Lichtenstein and pop art as much as I used to.
Leonard Kessler also ran into Warhol in 1960. Warhol was coming out of an art-supply store carrying paint and canvas. "Andy! What are you doing?" Without skipping a beat, Warhol said, "I'm starting pop art."

Kessler asked why. "Becauase I hate abstract expressionism. I hate it!"

[Jasonwclark]

Is it mean that these quotes totally made me scoff and chuckle at the same time?

“My goal as an artist is to achieve a very strong communication between my art and the observer; to communicate strong emotions through the strength of color. I want my art work to talk by itself. I wish to transport the observer into another world, a world of aesthetics and beauty; a world where you feel strong and where you know that your own opinion counts. And therefore you feel the complete certainty that is ok to be you, a world of your own.”

“while I was painting this portrait I was trying to express the contrast of the face of a person that you can actually see, versus the conceptual viewing of his ideas and thoughts in the person’s mind as they float in his universe. As an artist you have the ability to bring into reality anything that you want and in this case you are painting a reality and you are also painting a two dimensional form of someone’s thoughts and ideas. As a painter you are bringing these thoughts to life in abstract shapes of color. So the window next to the man can be anything you want it to be: a window or the representation of ideas in his own mind.”



419117

Kevin Costner?



I'd love to hate really, (and take a below the belt shot on the 'e' in her first name) but I try to maintain some modicum of sympathy.
I could be much crueler. Check out this silent burn right here...

419119

:devil:



______________________________________

And sorry for the double post, (too much time on my hands tonight), but I feel much less serious this time. :)

[Anid Maro]

Excellent post Jason. True Originality (with a capital 'O') is really a silly thing to expect of anyone. Everything is derivative of something else, either explicitly or implicitly (in the case of allusion). And as you pointed out there is a specific issue with "citing" sources in a visual work, where and how could you do that without intruding on the artwork itself?

It's pretty obvious where I stand on this, I throw out a red flag when the "allusion" constitutes the majority of the work with little to no creative input and the artist fails to present it as a copy and instead claims it as their own work. Of course as simple and dry cut as that may sound, I admit there is certainly wiggle room even in my own view. What constitutes a sufficient amount of "creative input"? What is creative input anyways? How much of a work is a "majority"?

Besides, I wouldn't (or at least shouldn't, heh) expect others to think like me or hold my standards. They're my standards, not anyone elses, so why should I expect everyone else to have arrived at the same place I did?

So there isn't any real resolution to these issues, though they are very good things to consider. The only conclusive statements I can arrive at is:

1. There is a very blurry line between allusion and copying.
2. There is a similarly vague distinction between when copying is okay and when it's not.
3. There are technical issues with "citing" allusions, or inspirations, or references, et cetera... for a visual work.
4. In my opinion, both Lichtenstein and Eckelberry have driven well past the fog and into the territory of copying; and thus should present their work as copies as well as refer to the proper copyright holders.

... And as this thread shows, that last one could be debatable. When's Arttorney gonna show up and draw us the legal line? Do we have to subpoena him or something? :)

[paramnesia]

I have a hard time appreciating pop art. Typically, what does leave a lasting impression on me is either the skill and technical ability or the composition. Something can be simple yet still mean something. Pop art, though, rarely does for me, though some actually kinda funny. But that's just my opinion.

Also, before you judge this gal too harshly, check out a website like this (http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/) which probably employs a number of traditional painters doing much the same thing. I'm sure they don't get the credit, but the money's still there I guess.
Eckelberry is not alone, that's true. She's just one recent name I came across who has manga style among her "art", and that caught my attention. Prior to her, it was all western comic book art I'd seen copied and hung in galleries. I suppose that doesn't irk me about as sites like the one you linked to though is that there's no attempt -- at least that I notice -- to claim genius. They are, like the Chinese Anid Maro mentioned, skilled; reproduction does take craftsmanship, but I don't know if it's "art". Speaking of the Chinese, this article (http://www.regional-office.com/?p=16) is worth a look.

Dafen is a village surrounded by the thriving metropolis of Shenzhen, and the origin of most of the world’s reproduction oil paintings. In the popular imagination Dafen’s artists produce anonymous works for unknown customers, operating no differently than a faceless factory churning out counterfeits, replicas and nothing close to what would be considered art.
REGIONAL productively collaborated with the otherwise commoditized community in Dafen by asking selected individuals, some for the first time, to imagine themselves in their professional medium.

The Kevin Cosner painting and statement made me chuckle. Sometimes a window is just a window.

A bit irrelevant, but whenever I see the "I'd rather sink" piece I imagine the girl is in a giant washing machine. I can't say why; I just do. ^^;;

[Jasonwclark]

Yeah, definitely

I’m clearly providing a much stronger defense of these artists than their work merits. The truth is that I don’t think either of them are making a successful allusion, though I still think the concept of a visual arts analogy to the literary concept of allusion is sound. Why exactly Lichtenstein fails, and Eckelberry even more so, is harder to state though. In order for an allusion to work (if that's the tract they take), then enough people have to recognize the content being alluded to. That's probably the critical part of it. Without the viewer bringing that knowledge to the table, any allusion to be made, loses all its effective force and just gets passed over as meaningless. So basically, to pull it off, a majority of the intended audience (or at least a sizeable minority of the cognoscenti) should immediately recognize what you’re talking about. At the very least, a specialist, or academic with the credentials, should be able to see it.

Borrowing from the dead is probably fine, respectable even, but borrowing from your contemporaries is much more delicate and generally frowned upon. If you’re drawing on ideas from your elders, trying to glorify them or comment on their works with your own, then it’s like a form a flattery, and probably acceptable; but if you turn it around and start borrowing from the people around you (or those younger than you) then you’re probably a mark and deserving of the scorn. Also, you have to consider whether the author is actually saying anything of substance when they’re calling attention to the previous work. When Shakespeare lifts a line from Homer for example, it’s generally to some purpose that goes beyond just repeating the flowery language. If they’re going to make use of it, then they do something different with it: paraphrase it in a new light, or take the idea in a different direction.

I think of Alan Lee quoting Rackham or Wyeth in this way, when he draws a faerie in a certain style or paints a background after a familiar manner. You can understand where it’s coming from, (maybe down to the pose and the face of the girl, or the mood and atmosphere surrounding the castle), but it’s always a new take on the old idea. They give you something additional, possibly clever, that you couldn’t get from the original alone (though you’d certainly never get it without the original.) I don't feel anything like that from most pop art re-interpretations.

There’s also the issue of method. How do you go about reproducing the work you are alluding to? The parallel with writing is harder to see here, since in writing you can just use a quick punctuation mark, or seek out the appropriate synonyms and metonyms.

We can do something like this in the visual arts as well, but it requires that we first learn the basic vocabulary of the traditional canon (paintings and prints in this case.) There were movements in Europe a couple hundred years back, which took this trend to its extreme. Some artists or groups of artists, created a whole language of symbols based on previous works, and developed them into a kind framework for the creation of allegory paintings and drawings. Here’s a famous example I’ve always liked by Pierre Baird (1627).

419821

Back then though, everyone drew and engraved everything by hand. Even if they did use lenses, or other transferring techniques, it still came down to some guy sitting in a workshop, scratching away with his pen or stylus to make it happen. Since the photograph came along, the situation has shifted somewhat. Most of 20th century painting has been preoccupied with how to respond to the advent photography. At one end of the spectrum you have these extreme reactionaries who basically rejected representational art altogether, or at least tried to push painting as far away from photographic representation as possible. At its apogee in the late 50s early 60s, proponents of this movement took the Academy, and have exercised considerable influence on art education and art criticism ever since. People like Picasso and Kandinsky, or Chagall and Monet are its godfathers, and Abstract Expressionism is its holy grail (or Atomic Bomb, depending on how want to look at it.) The whole extended movement, from Dada to Pop Art, operates in reference to it, and much of 20th century aesthetic theory succeeds or fails depending on your attitude towards it.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have all these artists (illustrators in particular, but many in the gallery scene too) who immediately put the new technology to use, and pushed traditional/representational painting in strange new directions. You have other guys who just worked really hard for a long time to achieve the feel of a photograph in paint or charcoal, often by studying photographs and seeing how they work. Some of the late game figures like a Dali or Rauschenberg, directly incorporated photography into their paintings; literally painting on top of photographs, or using stereoscopic techniques to emulate photos. In the advertising and concepting arena, I’m sure litigation and good business practice have held any large scale analogizing of this sort in check, but you still encounter it even in the more monitored commercial areas. I think that there is always some appreciation of the underlying process though, we still judge it in terms of the specific context and medium in which it was created/presented.

Also, if the source is credited in the notebooks, cited in an endnote to the work itself, or otherwise publically acknowledged, then I think the whole character of the work changes. Direct citations might not always be required in the body of the text (that would turn poetry into literary commentary, and annecdote into history), but a proper paraphrase in the right contex, can lend weight to a project in ways that quotatings sometimes can't. The acknowledgment though is the most important. After that comes the question of whether or not it was in good taste, I suppose.

And then there's the money. I'm inclined to think that done properly, this should never enter into the equation. An homage should not be about the financial gain. I suppose in film its a little tricky since the projects are so large, and commercially driven, but even in a movie that makes a direct sampling (like the Hello Dolly scene in Wall-E say, or the Apple start up sound) if you read the fine print credits or asked the creators, you can quickly trace it back to the source. I'm sure if there were any issues, then somebody got paid; but even if they didn't, I don't think anybody's going to say that Pixar is piggybacking on a musical just to make a buck right? That's because for us its obvious that the allusion was in good taste, and in service to something that goes beyond just the original work in question. Maybe it's a also little bit about the fame, or the connection to a certain history or community, but you don't get the sense that it was done on the cheap or that it tries to take advantage of someone else's idea. I'm not sure you can say that of Lichtenstein or Eckelberry.


For those interested in Roy Lichtenstein or the convtroversy surrounding him, you'll definitely want to check out this link...
http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html



A bit irrelevant, but whenever I see the "I'd rather sink" piece I imagine the girl is in a giant washing machine. I can't say why; I just do.

The only thing worse than a pretty girl's face in a washing machine, is the washing machine without one.

419822
:devil:

[Jasonwclark]

Also, just in case anyone was wondering, this is the poster I have hanging on my side of the living room, in response to the Lichtenstein. ;)

419942

Again, sorry for the double post, but you know I like to close on a lighter note. :)

[arenhaus]

Danny Myers: Too bad Lichtenstein's reproductions of comic panels actually show less attractive inking and less expressive drawing than the original panels...

[Psychotime]

And then there's Superflat, which SEEMS to be going about the same idea the right way.

I don't know much about Lichtenstein, but yeah, he really bugs me too. If he WAS in fact trying to glorify comic art in the fine art circle, he should have done it in a different way. Weak reproductions don't cut it.

Or maybe...that was the point?

[velderia]

Nick Simmons got nearly (nearly) murdered in the comics industry but if you're in a museum... It's all right?

Fuck her. I really don't see a difference between those two. Except maybe Nick can draw almost half-way decent when he's not ripping off of Bleach (1% of the time).

I can understand making copies of classical paintings, because it kind of keeps dead masters alive, but this is just typical normal BS and it's embarrassing for real manga/comic book fans.

"But I went to a fancy-pants art school and drank $1232453 dollar wine bottles". FUCK art school.

Okay, maybe not fuck all art schools but still.

[/unprofessional rant]

[khajiit]

And this is why I think I'll die of starvation one day... I would be outright embarrassed to put those in an art gallery, heck not even DA tolerates things like that. It makes me sad to think of all the fanartists in Japan and elsewhere that create stunning artwork, and yet make a pittance compared to this woman that draws... face closeups that are rips of published manga?

Fan art is only fan art when a fan actually draws the cursed thing themselves :/

[bhanu]

Irony is the post modernist keyword, if you wanna be a big player, use the word people.