Engaging essays on a wide-variety of illustration-based subjects by knowledgable authors, scholars, artists, and students can be explored here.
Constructing New Meaning in Children’s Books: The Work of Faith Ringgold, Jerry Pinkney, and Vashti Harrison
Lee Price | February 23, 2021 - This essay focuses on the ways Black creatives have utilized the medium of children’s books to construct positive imagery, meaning, purpose, and pride.
Santa in Illustration
Venus van Ness | December 21, 2020 - Images of Santa Claus in the 1800s do not portray the round, jolly, bearded man that we know today. Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, images of Santa morphed through a variety of looks.
Dan Smith: Rediscovered Star of the World
Alex Bialy | May 27, 2020 - This essay examines the remarkable career of a prolific Golden Age illustrator of full-page Sunday newspaper supplements and painted Western subjects.
Fashion Illustration from the 16th Century to Now
Sarah Goethe-Jones | March 12, 2019 - Fashion illustration not only captures nuance through gesture, but transforms the graphic representation of a garment into an object of desire.
Design and Illustration in the Record Business
Michael Goldstein | August 10, 2018 - An introduction to the designers and illustrators who advanced the importance of album covers and record packaging in the modern music era.
Producing Album Cover Art for Clients in the Music Business
Michael Goldstein | July 19, 2018 - Album covers have benefited from the talents of the people who have worked on them, the tools they had available, and the dynamics of the “Popular Culture” at the time they were created.
Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning
Jesse M. Kowalski | January 19, 2017 - A history of the world's longest animation partnership, which led the move of animated shorts from film to television and created Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Re-Covering America
Wayne Fields | February 10, 2016 - In post-war America, illustrator Al Parker creates a modern image of women on the covers of national magazines.