Illustration | Guillermo Coll

20Jun 2025 by kike_K No Comments

Charles Bell

Illustration

Tin toys or slot machines, both high plasticity items, could not go unnoticed by this first generation of photorealistic American artists in the 1970s. All these objects are Charles Bell’s hallmark (1935-1995), the most outstanding and identifiable of the lot.Those ítems are of interest nowadays, so the bottles of Ketchup, the old Chevrolets or urbanizable perspectives by Ralph Goings, John Salt and Richard Estes, that says little in favor of the current hyperrealistic artists, by the way. Everything is perceived nowadays as cultural icons although those weren’t icons at the time; they were just normal, everyday things which went unnoticed most of the time. Nobody had any aesthetic interest in those items, nobody but Charles Bell and a bunch of artists.

Margaret Mee

Illustration

MARGARET MEE (1909-1988)The botanic art is a matter the British people have always considered very seriously. They have a well-known prestigious national institution: the Botanical Arts & Artists, entrusted to preserve and promote the tradition and many new artists constantly arise and produced exquisite quality works with a perfect balance between science and aesthetic joy.Margaret Mee's life could have been used to write a great novel and to shoot an unforgettable movie. The perfect wild English lady who is a bit eccentric too such as Katherine Hepburn in 'The Queen of Africa' working as a painter and moving to the Brasilian Amazone rainforest. She embarked on a trip into the jungle and for weeks she painted orchids with an only companion, (our much admired Bogart), surrounded by danger, with a…

Hasui Kawase (1883-1957)

Illustration

I do love the rain and the falling snowflakes so many times present in Hasui Kawase's woodblock prints; engraver, printer, watercolourist and a Japanese 'national living treasure', following a particular technique, the woodcut printing with water inks (moku hanga), a technique dating back from the beginning of the 17th century, during the rise of the Edo period.Japan featured by Kawase is timeless. One does not really know if these narrow streets, the storm has flooded, the temples covered by the snow and the indoor sceneries are modern post-war sceneries or if they are Japanese Samurai Middle-age ones.

Category: Illustration