The Journalist Art Illustrator: Julian Allen

"Born in Cambridge, England.  Studied at Cambridge College of Arts, then the Central School of Art, London.  Worked for the London Sunday Times Magazine as a journalist-artist.  In 1973 came to New York at the invitation of Clay Felker (the publisher of New York magazine) and Milton Glaser.  Resigned from New York magazine in 1977, have seen been freelancing."

The above is what is taken from a great book called Outstanding American Illustrataors Today published in 1984.  He still did art work and has a great freelance body of work now including doing art for Rolling Stone among others.

Here are some more websites that discuss this unique people and portrait illustrator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Allen

http://www2.citypaper.com/story.asp?id=11377

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-10-01/news/1998274069_1_julian-allen-clay-felker-illustrator

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/30/arts/julian-allen-55-illustrator-worked-for-many-periodicals.html

He passed away in 1998.  He lives on in this website:

http://julianallen.com/index.html

Please bypass the intro and see more of his art at that website.

Here are some of his great pieces from an unforgettable Illustrator of the highest standards.

Lauren Bacall

Bogie and Bacall

Marlon Brando from "Last Tango in Paris."

Ronald Regan

 

Paul McCartney

Eye art.

Pete Townshend

Roman Polanski and his film "Tess."

Ronald Regan

The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

 

Below the Artist himself:

 

Why a Blog on Art Illustrators?

Why create a blog dedicated to the wonderful illustrators of yesterday and today?

Because many get lost in the suffle of magazine articles and many are not even known.  For instance, many advertisements and such never showed or listed them.  So many have been forgotten when they were the innovators of a time when computer illustrators were not even starting.  And, we must admit, that many illustrators now use the computer.  That is fine and--in the future--we will include some of them.  But for now, we study the fantastic art of artists setting and doing art whereas they took a blank sheet of paper or canvas, ect. to truly create some incredible work that was not helped by a computer.

No offense is meant for computer illustrators here.  But there have been many more years of magazine artists who have been forgotten.  For example: the old art deco artists of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and in advertisements.  Back then the illustrator was lucky to be mentioned or even to have their signature on the piece. 

So this blog is a special place for all illustrators so they will not be forgotten.