Western post war illustration.Normal everyday moments depicted in illustrations: Norman Rockwell.Born in 1894, Norman Rockwell took the world by storm with his aspirations to become an artist. By fourteen he was already attending an art school and only two years after this he left school to study at the national academy of design and then the art students league. Rockwell became successful very early on into his career, finishing his first commissioned pieces before he had turned sixteen. After working for many different publications, he landed a job for 'The Saturday Post'. They considered Rockwell to be the 'greatest show window in America' and he found most of his success with this publication working for them for 47 years. Up until 1937, Rockwell worked exclusively with still life and models when creating his illustrations. After this though he discovered photography and how he can use this to his advantage. Rockwell would take lots of photos of the same subject and then have many to pick from. He would also have models and assistants to dress up and pose for his illustrations. How he would work is by sketching up an idea in his head then bringing it to life with a back story and photography to follow, he would even sometimes use projectors to help him bring his work to life. Norman Rockwell was also a perfectionist, It once took him 11 months to finish an illustration as he wouldn't have it published until he was happy with it. I find Rockwells art very charming and full of character, each piece has a feel of the last but also has its own sense of individuality as each painting portrays a completely different story or scene Bernie Fuchs.Born in 1932, Fuchs didn't actually draw or study art for the first 18 years of his life. He originally wanted to play the jazz trumpet professionally until a freak accident happened and he lost three fingers. This turned Fuchs to the world of advertising. His career really set off in the 1950's, back then magazines focused on illustration much more than photography and so there was a high demand for artists like Fuchs. In the late 1980s, advertising started to bore Fuchs and so he started looking at painting much more loosely and began working as a children's book illustrator. This ended up being one of his favourite things to do. he also had the challenge of creating 8 United States postage stamps but painting within such restraints wasn't what he wanted as a challenge. He eventually found his way into making television advertisements and film, he won art directors club awards for this but still ended up back to painting. In the 90's, however, this style of illustration was much more noticed in galleries either than magazine as photography had took over. I enjoy how as an artist, Fuchs was an individual that didn't follow one path and stick to it, he also found his own style of work which stood out amongst other popular artists at the time like Rockwell.
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