Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff (russian: , 25 May 1899,
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
– 16 July 1965) was a Ukrainian
illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
active in the United States, notable for his strongly worked and often
surreal
Surreal may refer to:
*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art
* "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki
* ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze
*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor
...
designs.
Life and career
Artzybasheff was born in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Mikhail Artsybashev. He is said to have fought as a White Russian. During 1919 he arrived in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he worked in an engraving shop.
His earliest work appeared in 1922 as illustrations for ''Verotchka's Tales'' and ''The Undertaker's Garland''. A number of other book illustrations followed during the 1920s.
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dhan Gopal Mukerji ( bn, ধন গোপাল মুখোপাধ্যায়; ''Dhan Gōpāl Mukhōpādhyāy'') (6 July 1890 – 14 July 1936) was the first successful Indian man of letters in the United States and won a Newbery Med ...
's ''
Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon
''Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon'' is a 1927 children's novel by Dhan Gopal Mukerji that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1928. It deals with the life of Gay-Neck, a prized Indian pigeon. Mukerji wrote th ...
'', with his illustrations, was awarded the
Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...
Caldecott Honor Book
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Servic ...
in 1938. Over the course of his career, he illustrated some 50 books, several of which he wrote, most notably ''As I See''.
During his lifetime, however, Artzybasheff was probably known best for his magazine art. He illustrated the major American magazines ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'', ''
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'', and ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''.) He painted 219 ''Time'' covers from 1942 to 1966, including portraits of
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
(21 February 1949) and
Dave Brubeck
David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...
(8 November 1954). Other illustrators of ''Time'' covers during this period, which has been called the golden age of ''Time'' covers, included
Robert Vickrey
Robert Remsen Vickrey (August 26, 1926 – April 17, 2011) was a Massachusetts-based artist and author who specialized in the ancient medium of egg tempera. His paintings are surreal dreamlike visions of sunset shadows of bicycles, nuns in f ...
,
James Ormsbee Chapin
James Ormsbee Chapin (9 July 1887 – 12 July 1975) was an American painter and illustrator. He was the father of jazz musician Jim Chapin and grandfather of folk singer Harry Chapin.
Life
Chapin was born in West Orange, New Jersey, to James A. ...
,
Bernard Safran
Bernard Safran (June 3, 1924 – October 14, 1995) was an American painter known for his realistic portraits and scenes of everyday life in New York and in rural Canada. He created many portraits for Time magazine covers, with subjects that includ ...
and
Boris Chaliapin
Boris Chaliapin (Russian: Борис Фёдорович Шаля́пин; September 22, 1904 – May 18, 1979) was an artist for ''Time'' magazine, for which he illustrated more than 400 covers, from 1942 (Jawaharlal Nehru) to Richard Nixon).
Bac ...
.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he also served an expert advisor to the
U.S. Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
,
Psychological Warfare
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...
Branch.
After 1940, he devoted himself to
commercial art
Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...
, including
advertisement
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
s for
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
Pan Am
Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...
, Casco Power Tools,
Alcoa
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...
Steamship lines,
Parke-Davis
Parke-Davis is a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Although Parke, Davis & Co. is no longer an independent corporation, it was once America's oldest and largest drug maker, and played an important role in medical history. In 1970 ...
,
Avco
Avco Corporation is a subsidiary of Textron which operates Textron Systems Corporation
and Lycoming.
History
The Aviation Corporation was formed on March 2, 1929, to prevent a takeover of CAM-24 airmail service operator Embry-Riddle Compa ...
Vultee Aircraft
The Vultee Aircraft Corporation became an independent company in 1939 in Los Angeles County, California. It had limited success before merging with the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in 1943, to form the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporati ...
,
World Airways
World Airways, Inc. was a United States airline headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia in Greater Atlanta. The company operated mostly non-scheduled services but did fly scheduled passenger services as well, notably with McDonnell Douglas DC ...
, and
Parker Pens
The Parker Pen Company is a French manufacturer of luxury writing pens, founded in 1888 by George Safford Parker in Janesville, Wisconsin, United States. In 2011 the Parker factory at Newhaven, East Sussex, England, was closed, and its producti ...
.
His graphic style is striking. In commercial work he explored grotesque experiments in
anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
, where toiling machines displayed distinctly human attributes. Conversely, one of his works shows
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
's head in the form of Fuller's
geodesic
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...
structure. In his personal work, he explored the depiction of vivid and extreme ranges of human psychology and emotion.
His papers are collected at
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
.
Selected illustrations
* ''Verotchka's Tales'', by
Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak
Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak (russian: Дми́трий Нарки́сович Ма́мин-Сибиря́к) (October 25, 1852 – November 2, 1912) was a Russian author most famous for his novels and short stories about life in the Ur ...
(
E. P. Dutton
E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group.
Creator
Edward Payson Dutton (January 4, ...
John Peale Bishop
John Peale Bishop (May 21, 1892 – April 4, 1944) was an American poet and man of letters.
Biography
Bishop was born in Charles Town, West Virginia, to a family from New England, and attended school in Hagerstown, Maryland and Mercersburg Acade ...
and
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...
(
A. A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau (; 12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist, focusing on racism, race relations within much of her published material.Michael R. Hill (2002''Harriet Martineau: Th ...
Ella Young
Ella Young (26 December 1867 – 23 July 1956) was an Irish poet and Celtic mythologist active in the Gaelic and Celtic Revival literary movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. Born in Ireland, Young was an author of poetry and c ...
(1927)
* ''
Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon
''Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon'' is a 1927 children's novel by Dhan Gopal Mukerji that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1928. It deals with the life of Gay-Neck, a prized Indian pigeon. Mukerji wrote th ...
'', by
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dhan Gopal Mukerji ( bn, ধন গোপাল মুখোপাধ্যায়; ''Dhan Gōpāl Mukhōpādhyāy'') (6 July 1890 – 14 July 1936) was the first successful Indian man of letters in the United States and won a Newbery Med ...
(1927)
* ''Orpheus: Myths of the World'', by
Padraic Colum
Padraic Colum (8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972) was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival.
Early life
Col ...
(1930)
* ''Son of the Sword'', by Youel B. Mirza (1934),
* ''All Things Are Possible: An Apocryphal Novel'', by
Lewis Browne
Lewis Browne (1897January 3, 1949) was a writer, philosopher, lecturer and world traveller. A rabbi, Browne turned to writing popular histories and biographies including ''This Believing World'' (1926), ''The Graphic Bible'' (1928, illustrations b ...
, dust jacket (1935)
* ''
The Circus of Dr. Lao
''The Circus of Dr. Lao'' (1935) is a novel written by the American newspaperman and writer Charles G. Finney. It won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1935.
"Books and Authors", ''The New York Times'', 1936-0 ...
'', by Charles G. Finney (1935)
* '' Seven Simeons: a Russian Tale'', written by Artzybasheff (1937)
* '' Nansen'', by Anne Gertrude Hall (1940)
* ''
Land of Unreason
''Land of Unreason'' is a fantasy novel by American writers Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the fantasy magazine '' Unknown Worlds'' for October, 1941 as "The Land of Unreason". Revised and expanded, it was first p ...
'', by
Fletcher Pratt
Murray Fletcher Pratt (25 April 1897 – 10 June 1956) was an American writer of history, science fiction, and fantasy. He is best known for his works on naval history and the American Civil War and for fiction written with L. Sprague de Camp.
...
and
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biog ...
(1942)
* ''The Tree of Life: Selections from the Literature of the World's Religions'', by Ruth Smith (1942)
* ''
The Little Sister
''The Little Sister'' is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, his fifth featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. The story is set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s and follows Marlowe's investigation of a missing persons case and blackm ...
'', by
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
, dust jacket (1949)
* ''
The Simple Art of Murder
''The Simple Art of Murder'' is the title of several quasi-connected publications by hard-boiled detective fiction author Raymond Chandler:
*The first, and arguably best-known, is a critical essay on detective fiction, originally published in ...
'', by Raymond Chandler, dust jacket (1950)
As the illustrator of ''Seven Simeons'', which he also wrote, Artzybasheff was one of two runners-up for the
Caldecott Medal
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Servic ...
in 1938, when the American Library Association inaugurated its award for children's picture books. Mukerji won the 1928
Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...
for ''Gay Neck''; Young and Hall were among the runners-up for that annual ALA award, which recognizes the "most distinguished contribution to children's literature". Finney won one of the inaugural, 1935 National Book Awards for ''The Circus of Dr. Lao''.