James Gordon Irving (June 2, 1913 – August 15, 2012) was a commercial illustrator and painter, best known for illustrating the early
Golden Guide
The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, were a series of 160-page, pocket-sized books created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line (primarily a children's book imprint) from 1949. Edited by Herbert S. Zim ...
series of nature books.
Life and career
Irving, who went by the name Gordon, was born in
Ridgefield Park, New Jersey
Ridgefield Park is a Village (New Jersey), village in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the village's population was 12,729, Interested in natural-history illustration from an early age, he took art classes at the Dean Academy in Franklin, Massachusetts, and from the age of 17 at the
Grand Central School of Art The Grand Central School of Art was an American art school in New York City, founded in 1923 by the painters Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark and John Singer Sargent. The school was established and run by the Grand Central Art Galleries, an art ...
and the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
in New York City. He served in the US Navy at a naval base in San Francisco during World War II, where he met his wife-to-be, Grace Crowe, moving back to New Jersey in 1947 to raise a family.
Irving worked as a commercial artist for many years, but is best known as the illustrator of the
Golden Guide
The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, were a series of 160-page, pocket-sized books created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line (primarily a children's book imprint) from 1949. Edited by Herbert S. Zim ...
s, pocket-size introductions to natural history for children; he illustrated the first, ''Birds'' (1949) by
Herbert Zim
Herbert Spencer Zim (July 12, 1909 – December 5, 1994) was a naturalist, author, editor and educator best known as the founder (1945) and editor-in-chief of the Golden Guides series of nature books.
Biography
Zim was born 1909 in New York ...
& Ira Gabrielson, and eight more during the first years of the series: ''Insects'' (1951), ''Stars'' (1951), ''Trees'' (1952), ''Reptiles and Amphibians'' (1952), ''Fishes'' (1955), ''Mammals'' (1955), ''Zoology'' (1958), and ''Gamebirds'' (1961). When the series was relaunched in 2001, several of the books continued to feature Irving's paintings.
A resident of
Haworth, New Jersey
Haworth ( ) is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 3,382,