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Even more Great Al Parker Illos.

Ap_20

Another beauty and so well designed as a painting. Click on all the images to enlarge.

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Ap_22


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Ap_24_300

So, I'm speechless. That's the way Al Parker's work leaves me. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and we'll get together again next week.

Al Parker's great illustrations as designs

Click on all images to enlarge them.

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From Cosmopolitan magazine for February 1952.

Ap_12_1

This is just the top of a full-page illustration.

Ap_13_lhj

Al Parker was famous for his Journal covers. This was a promotional piece, hence the note to advertisers in the lower left part of the illo.

Ap_14

Just the top of the illustration. My scanner isn't big enough for these pages and stitching doesn't much help.


Ap_15

Parker's talent speaks for itself. You don't need me to explain how good these are.

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Ap_19

This is a painting, in my opinion. Al Parker transcended illustration for magazines.

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Stay tuned for more from the fabulous fifties.

More of my stuff, 1962-1972

I wasn't prepared for the positive feedback I got about my Polaroid designs. I'm particularly grateful to the kind words of Alissa of Mediabistro, Khoi Vinh of Subtraction and Stephanie Piro. I urge you visit them on this incredible medium that connects us all in a wonderful way we could never have dreamed of when this work was done.

Giampeace

Cape Cod Winter is an original silk-screen print I produced myself in 1962 working with a resist of torn paper and LePage's glue. I added Peace in Bodoni in Adobe Photoshop® a couple of years ago. Click on image to enlarge.

0730ccsummer_1

This was Cape Cod Summer, produced in the same manner and same sheet size, 20 x 26 inches. 1963. Click on image to enlarge.

Pg_studio_2

Working the one-man squeegee at one end of the studio-workshop, Centerville, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Pg_studio_1

The designing end of the studio-workshop I built (in 1962) on the footprint of a two-car garage, about 20 x 24 feet in size.

Magpies

Magpies, another silk screen print on 20 x 26 Strathmore Fairfield paper in 1973. The resist was glue over touche. Click on image to enlarge.

Grackle

Purple Grackle, same technique, 1973. Click on image to enlarge.

0928nublack_1

Nude in black, glue resist over touche on 20 x 26 Strathmore, 1970.

Ruth_1

The original sketch for the print, above, done with felt-nib markers on a sheet of layout pad paper.

Settimanadebocx

A commercially printed poster designed for the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in 1972. I worked a 6-month gig in Sardinia at the time and designed this with markers on a layout pad for a printer in Milano. I hope to replace this fuzzy scan with something better when I can find the original.

OK, enough about me, let's get back to the amazing talent of Al Parker who was an extraordinary designer as well as illustrator.


My designs, 1962-1978

This is probably shameless of me, but I can't resist adding my own work to this web log. I've rationalized it this way: as so many have remarked in so many words, "You probably haven't heard about this guy . . . ." and a few articles have favorably mentioned my work, which you can find at my other blog: The Branding of Polaroid 1957-1977. I feel I really should enlighten my viewers to what it was like working in the great post World War II environment before the accursed bean-counters took over and polluted the world visually as well as physically by their insane preoccupation with the "bottom-line." You can view it all and read about it in detail by clicking the hot link above.

Polasx70x

The first collection of Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera family of a high-quality camera and accessories as introduced in 1972. Below is an enlarged version of the "god's eye" which I used to identify the product line of cameras.

Godseye_1
Prontorf

The Polaroid Pronto! Land Camera line of products introduced in 1976.


Ssbothfilm

The Polaroid Square Shooter Land Camera, introduced in the early 1970s to capture the market for instant photography at lower price points in department and discount retail outlets. Square format film sold for less than the traditional rectangular format film.

Supersx

The Polaroid Square Shooter Land Camera line used both square- and rectangular-format film. This was also a down-market one-piece camera made of plastic to sell for low prices in discount stores. Click on image to enlarge.

 

Sunglassesx

My original design for Polaroid sunglasses sold only internationally and not in the USA. The date was 1962 and it was one of my favorite designs. The image eventually became generic for sunglasses throughout the world and was discontinued by Polaroid for that reason in the late 1970s. Click on image to enlarge.

Kyotobos

My favorite design for the Boston-Kyoto Sister City Committee done pro bono in 1972. More, later.


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Please, I beg you...

  • Please don't send me files and please don't tell me you have a print or a painting by one of these illustrators, or another, and ask me how much they are worth. Take the time to Google for information or seek an appraisal from a qualified art gallery.