Sunday, October 18, 2009

Mulligan Day was October 18, I'm taking mine now



The Bolles covers from Laughter, a periodical in the vein of Judge and Life that ran from 1925 to 1927, really tickle my fancy. They ranged from his standard oil paintings to more cartoon-like covers resembling pen and ink sketches, like this example. It's only too bad that the magazine didn't last longer, but toward the end it started to run other artists on the cover, a familiar story for Bolles. The likely scenario was that as sales began to ebb art editors began to economize on cover art and turned to other illustrators, not that Bolles was commanding exorbitant prices.
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Below a lovely example of his advertising work done about the same time as the Laughter cover (1925). I've included it for comparison to dispel the myth that Bolles resorted to "cartoony" because he couldn't do anything else. As much as I like the portrait, it's the fabulous the typography, all in Bolles' hand, that makes this painting aces.

3 comments:

Gary Underwood said...

The expression on her face is priceless. Enoch was a master at capturing that faint little glance of the face that told a story in itself.

Jack R said...

That really is true for Bolles, isn't it. What I guess I have a hard time understanding is why, or what provoked him, to do so many expressionless covers in the 30s. I'm thinking mainly about Bedtime Stories and some of the other under the counter mags he did work for.

Artman2112 said...

i like the comparison! makes me think of that beautiful painting Frazetta did of his wife, Elle that clearly showed he was a master of realistic anatomy as well as his usual more exaggerated stuff.
there's no doubt though that Bolles was a skilled Draughtsman though!