Well, so far here in Miami Art is winning against Comics. Last night I saw some fine Copleys and the best Picabia painting David Salle never painted. But not a back issue in sight. Where's a Frank Santoro when you need him? This is, in fact, seven years to the week that Frank and I flew on down to Miami and heard the alarming news that one artist friend had a stash of weed strapped to his scrotum. Alarming, but somehow not discouraging. Yes, in those halcyon days one could glimpse a Paper Rad skate ramp made from cardboard amidst the Miami glitterati. Also: People now dead that were then alive. Anyhow! I finished my installation this evening and I'm all set. So, on to the internets.
Today on the site we have a profile of John T. McCutcheon by R.C. Harvey. Harv! Tell us what you know:
Newspaper artists furnished all the illustrative material for the papers of the day. The halftone engraving process for reproducing photographs had been perfected in 1886, but it was not adapted successfully to the big rotary presses until the New York Tribune did it in 1897. Until the turn of the century, newspaper sketch artists were graphic reporters, covering all the events that photographers were to cover later. McCutcheon drew pictures of everything. He illustrated major news events, often working from sketches made on-the-spot. A typical day might include a trial in the morning, a sporting event or crime scene or a local catastrophe in the afternoon, and an art show opening or a flood or fire in the evening. When not dashing from event to event with a pad of paper under his arm, he worked in the office, doing portraits of politicians and dignitaries, and decorations for a variety of columns and stories. At the beginning, he was more illustrator than cartoonist, and he also wrote occasional feature pieces and newsstories.
What else is happening? I don't really know, but here goes:
Sean Howe keeps delivering the goods. Here he is on Ms. Marvel.
I'm one of the only people I know who likes George Wunder. So I guess this is made for me. Wunder drew the oddest faces this side of Boody Rogers and did paintings of early American history for a book in the 1970s. Those are weird weird weird. I love them.
Slow links day? Maybe. I'm on the run, though, so I ask you to ponder George Wunder until the next one of these rolls around.
