Dean Cornwell !

[JoshuaTheJames]

...if you didn't already know...now you do.








-Joshua

[JoshuaTheJames]

Dean Cornwell, below, supervises an assistant and a live model for the “California History” series

[JoshuaTheJames]

I found this book today for TEN bucks!! An amazing find at a place called "Half Priced Books". I went insane when I saw the price!

-Joshua

some more pics...

[JoshuaTheJames]

by the way... these jpegs hardly do him justice...

-Joshua

[jrr]

these paintings in person will blow you away. they're so chunky so thick! there's a painting that sargent did at the met with an old man sitting in the woods and there's a deer next to him. if you know what that painting looks like , cornwell's have that feel.

[Elwell]

TEN BUCKS! That's got to be the steal of the decade. All of you must buy this book IMMEDIATLEY, even if you have to pay full price for it.

Amazon link to the Cornwell book

And while you're at it, pick up a copy of Famous American Illustrators too.

[bengal]

just wonderful, impressive, grand. i'm in awe.

[I.was.ink]

I had no idea this guy existed.

Thanks josh. Your art history threads are always great.

Tell us about some others.....please....

[Main Loop]

how the hell? ten bucks? wow.. i dont see it anywhere less than 75 bucks

[JoshuaTheJames]

[Main Loop]

i got my dean cornwell book ysterday.. oooweee

i got it brand spankin new for 20 bucks here:

www.hamiltonbook.com

[JoshuaTheJames]

Thats crazy.

[jester]

I didn't know him and his paintings, but he's a great illustrator! Thanks for guiding me to this artist!

Jester

[JoshuaTheJames]

Bump... :jump1:

[tinyhands]

I love cornwells work. One of my favorites.

-joshuathejames-its great that you've been posting stuff of artists that most people might not know. If you get a chance maybe you can find some stuff on Mead Schaeffer and Saul Tepper. I know Mead did alot of Sat. Eve. Post covers but he did other stuff too. And I think Saul Tepper was another brandywyne guy too. Really hard to find stuff on these guys but if you do, definately worth seeing.

-i.was.ink-what are they teaching you over there!? just kidding. Blame the faculty.

[el coro]

i gotta say i've been a disciiple of this guys work for a long time...definitely one of my favorites. just the best mix of everything, that guy...the dunn brandywine training, the brangwyn decorative, and that juicy ass precise brushwork! and the guy walked away from illustration almost entirely at the height of his career to paint murals...a guy after my own heart. its a good thing he died over 50 years ago, cuz if he were still alive, i'd hunt him down and fuck him all prison style to express my afffection for him.-c36

[Main Loop]

Originally Posted by el coro

its a good thing he died over 50 years ago, cuz if he were still alive, i'd hunt him down and fuck him all prison style to express my afffection for him.-c36

If leyendecker was still alive you might have a better shot with him

[Denart]

dang Joshua, you got a great deal there!

and the guy walked away from illustration almost entirely at the height of his career to paint murals...

so did N.C. Wyeth!

and then he died when a train ran over him while inside his car.
Nooo! He still had many great works that were bound to come.

[jmascho]

dean cornwell is the man.

btw: christopher walken is in pic #4

[jetpack42]

amazing. heard about this guy before...wow.

[Sakievich]

As the saying goes, "Dean wasn't done, until he was Dunn." Harvey Dunn a former student of Howard Pyle was Cornwell's principle teacher and if you compare Dean's earlier work with Harvey Dunn's you'll find that Dean essentially copied Dunn's style, brushwork, etc. That was the key to Dean's success in illustration. He was able to adjust his style to what was current at the time. He even did some paintings Nikolai Fechin style after Mr. Fechin stayed with him for a few days after coming to America from the USSR. Later on when he wanted to do murals he studied with Frank Brangwyn in England and when he came back to do murals, he did them Frank Brangwyn style. That's one of the things you'll notice as you go through that book and look at the pictures in their linear chronology is that his style changed with his times.

Another one of his tricks was how he did his paintings, the book on him talke about how he painted a full illustration in 3 hours. But that was a result of two things (as far as I can tell). A. well conceived and executed drawings and studies done in charcoal or graphite before hand. B. His typically limited color palette. If you look in his paintings, you can see the exact same colors showing up, especially that blue and red (those really stick out to me). He premixed all his colors before beginning and knew how to place each one precisely where it belonged! Now that's a skill I'd like to have.

Though Cornwell was married, it was not a happy relationship. He considered it his right to "have fun" with his models and for that his wife left him and took his children with him where they lived in a separate state. He continued to support them financially, but he wasn't any kind of father or husband to his family. He prefered the rock n' roll lifestyle of binges and big parties that, illustrators led at the time (they made A LOT more money back before tv was big!).

Pretty sad, but he did leave us volumes of beautiful, dramatic and expressive paintings.

[Journeyman]

More Cornwell images can be seen at the bottom of this ebay page:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

[scifiwasabi]

American Art Review Feb. 2005 has 17 small reproductions of "recently discovered" Dean Cornwell paintings. Wow these are just amazing! Check the magazine out while its still on the shelves.

[Snowsfall]

bump, and now... to break the thread

[Snowsfall]

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[chaosrocks]

WOOT!
c