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Hall of Fame
June 23- July 31, 2009
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The Society of Illustrators announces the 2009 Hall of Fame Recipients. Honorees include Mario Cooper, Paul
Davis, Laurence Fellows, Arnold Roth and Herbert Morton Stoops.
Since 1958, the Society of Illustrators has elected to its Hall of Fame artists recognized for their “distinguished achievement in the art of illustration.” Artists are elected by former presidents of the Society and are chosen based on their body of work and the impact it has made on the field of illustration. This year’s honorees include contemporary illustrators Paul Davis and Arnold Roth, as well as posthumous honorees Mario Cooper, Laurence Fellows and Herbert Morton Stoops.
Mario Cooper is best known for his use of watercolor. He was both a passionate painter and teacher of the medium, writing such books as Painting With Watercolor, Flower Painting in Watercolor, and Watercolor By Design. He was the President of the American Watercolor Society and his work could be found in the pages of many prestigious American magazines. He was a contributor to the Air Force Art Program and in 1954 he was assigned a plane with a crew of seven, as well as a courtesy rank of Brigadier General. Over the years he made visits to Asia, Europe, Africa, and Alaska. A majority of his work remains in the Pentagon and at the Smithsonian Institute.
Paul Davis’s ambition has been to make exciting graphic images, a task at which he is considered to be a master. Although his portraits and landscapes have illustrated everything from books to restaurant walls to the pages of the New Yorker, it is his theater-related images that David is most famous. By the time Davis joined forces wutg Joe Papp and the Public Theater in 1975- an association that would continue until Papp’s death in 1991- he had already built up more than a decade’s worth of magazine and book illustrations. Davis’s work said both excellence and entertainment.
In the 1930s, Laurence Fellows, a prominent fashion illustrator, was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The American Magazine, McClure’s, and Apparel Arts magazines. With only a limited number of men’s fashion artists available, Fellows was most in demand for the male-focused subjects, particularly by the newly launched Esquire magazine in the thirties, where he was regularly featured in full-color spreads for many years. Although Fellows considered himself a commercial illustrator, he was also a painter who exhibited periodically, later concentrating on abstractions.
Cartoonist and Illustrator Arnold Roth’s work has appeared regularly in most major American magazines, from Time to Sports Illustrated. In 1983, Roth was elected president of the National Cartoonists Society and the next year received the NCS Reuben award as cartoonist of the year. He has also won many Gold and Silver Medals in the Society’s annual show. He appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson several times and on David Letterman’s Late Show. He lectured at numerous art schools. For Roth, every drawing represents an artistic challenge as well as a narrative
one. Roth thinks like a jazz musician.
Herbert Morton Stoops grew up during the twilight of the Old West, amidst larger-than-life characters who would later people many of his illustrations and paintings. He studied oxen, cattle, mules, and above all, horses- wild or tame, standing still or galloping; Stoops was able to imbue horses with spirit of three-dimensional life. By the early 1920’s, large oils by Herbert Morton Stoops were being featured in stories and on covers for major magazines. In 1935 he was commissioned to paint all of Blue Book’s monthly covers and was given first pick of stories to illustrate. Stoops was one of the few illustrators who created art for magazines and pulps, newspapers, books, advertising, and galleries.
Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to “the promotion of the art of illustration- past, present and future.” It has over 1,000 members worldwide and is headquartered in an 1875 vintage carriage house in New York’s Upper East Side.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kate Feirtag
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