pen and ink masters | Art and Influence

Armand Cabrera

For the month of October my articles for Art and Influence will focus on past masters of pen and ink in honor of Inktober, an art challenge started by Jake Parker in 2009 that asks artists to draw and post a pen and ink drawing a day for the month. The challenge has participants from around the world that post work online. In conjunction with my articles here I will also be posting work from a different pen and ink artist every day on my Facebook page.

Orson Byron Lowell was born in Iowa in 1871. He was the son of Milton H. Lowell and landscape painter. At eh age of 16 Lowell attended the art institute of Chicago studying under J.H Vanderpoel. In his last year of school he began to receive profession work from local

magazines.

In 1893 he moved to New York to establish his career. By 1905 he was a highly sought after illustrator making enough money to purchase a house in New Rochelle an artist’s community that included Norman Rockwell, Joseph Leyendecker and Franklin Booth.

Lowell worked for all of the top magazines of the time. Primarily known for his work in pen and ink, he also worked in watercolor, Gouache and oils. He was praised for his original style and line work and a keen eye in regards to social commentary. Orson Byron Lowell died in 1956.

Bibliography

The Illustrator in America 1900-1960

Walt and Roger Reed

Reinhold Publishing 1966

The Illustrator in America 1880-1980

Walt and Roger Reed

Madison Square Press 1993

The Illustrator in America 1860-2000

Walt and Roger Reed

Collins Design 2003

200 years of American illustration

Henry Pitz

Random House 1977

Masters of American Illustration:

41 Illustrators and how they worked

Fred Taraba

The Illustrated Press 2011

Rene Bull was born in 1872 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was English and his mother French

Rene studied engineering in Paris but decided he wanted to pursue art and took drawing lessons from the famous cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré who went by the pseudonym Caran d’ Ache.

When Rene returned to England in 1892 he settled in London and began creating wordless cartoons for Illustrated Bits and Pick Me Up.

In 1896 he became a war artist for the Black and White news magazine. He covered the Afghan War the Armenian Massacre and the Greco Turkish War. In 1900 he was severely wounded covering the Boer War.

Returning to England he worked as an illustrator and cartoonist. He is most remembered for his illustrations for The Arabian Nights in 1912 and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1913 and Gulliver’s Travels in 1928.

Rene Bull died in 1942