Playtime & Paytime

Playtime & Playtime

Very different from the sad uncertainty of the Independents (see above) was another mass exhibition in Manhattan last week, on the mezzanine floor of towering RCA Building where the Society of Illustrators was holding its 33rd annual exhibition. Displayed was technical dexterity carried to a high degree by men who as a group probably earn more than any other living painters. This year's show, entitled "Playtime and Paytime," consisted less of the magazine illustrations and advertisements that, removed from their text, always look so lost on a gallery wall, than of landscapes, portraits and bits of statuary. But what excited all Society members last week was not their wares on the gallery walls but the increasing use of two devices which have been giving illustrators an increasing amount of unwanted playtime : the high speed camera lens and the modern photographic color plate.

Two hard facts confronted the illustrators: 1) Nine-tenths of all magazine advertising in 1934 was illustrated with photographs. 2) Within the year three mass circulation magazines, the American, Pictorial Review and Delineator, whose covers were rich prizes for illustrators, have adopted colored photographic covers as a regular feature.

Beyond boycotting a fellow member who had the temerity to submit some photographs of his own to their annual show, the illustrators did not know just what to do about all this last week but they remained highly vocal.

Cried President Wallace Morgan, famed illustrator: "Photography in illustration is a new toy for both the public and the editors, whose disastrous results we are all feeling."

Added Muralist Dean Cornwell: "The photograph has taken the bread completely out of our mouths. The point is how long will it let us starve. It does demand that the artist do better work, and work that is so removed in style that competition will cease to exist."

James Montgomery Flagg: "This whole plague of photography is a baby of the Depression. It was cheaper than real art for advertising, but it is betraying its sponsors for all ads now look alike. . . . The boy and girl in their bathing suits being too ecstatic about a case of beer are the same boy and girl on the next page swearing they couldn't live without one of the four cigaret brands that claim to be better than each other."

Clayton Knight, illustrator of aviation stories: "The sooner we can find something to put the skids under it the better."

Almost the only optimist was Illustrator Frederic G. Cooper: "Drawings will always have a monopoly of fiction illustration. The reason is in itself a tribute to photography; the latter is too definite to be tolerated. The obvious truth of photography will not mix with the frank fictitiousness of fiction."

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