Allow me to introduce you to
David Downton, artist in residence at Claridges (lucky, lucky man -- although well-deserved), and a wonderful fashion illustrator. I've been a long-term fan of his work, and very much recommend his
new book.
Last month we had tea together at his v.chic suite in Claridges, and here's the piece I've just written about him (and the great illustrators he so admires) for the
Sunday Telegraph, or you can read it below...
‘What can fashion
illustration do that photography can’t?’ asks David Downton; a question that he
is more qualified than most to answer, given his reputation as one of the best
contemporary illustrators at work today; and now the author of a handsome new book
which includes a portfolio of his own work, alongside that of his favourite artists
from the past. ‘It can tell an alternative story in fashion, and hold a mirror
up to the times.’
Downton himself has
drawn everyone from Dita Von Teese to Cate Blanchett, and covered fashion shows
since his first commission to illustrate Paris couture in July 1996; but
despite his privileged position in the front row and backstage (and an enviable
role as artist-in-residence at Claridges), he is working in an era where
photography has tended to push illustrations out of glossy magazines. Gone are
the days when Harper’s Bazaar or Vogue featured the most creative of artists on
their front covers: Erté, for example, (born
Romain de Tirtoff in St Petersburg in 1892), who contributed original fashion
illustrations to Bazaar from 1915 to 1936. As Downton observes, Erté’s Bazaar
covers ‘are masterpieces of Art Deco design’, and his singular vision the
catalyst for fashion in its broadest sense, from Paul Poiret’s couture to Ballets
Russes costumes.
The broad sweep of
Downton’s choice of artists in his book (‘Masters of Fashion Illustration’) is
an indication of the genre’s capacity for innovation and ambition. Here are
Giovanni Boldini’s bravura portraits of the Belle Époque, including his painting
of a darkly glamorous Marchesa Casati in a Poiret gown; and Boldini’s natural
successor, Etienne Drian, who was introduced to the pages of Harper’s Bazar in
1921 (the magazine’s second ‘a’ was not added until 1929), thereafter sketching
the Duchess of Windsor, amongst other society beauties.
Equally striking were the
images produced for Vogue in the 1930s by Carl Erickson, universally known as
Eric, who recorded what Downton describes as ‘the theatre of high fashion – the
Paris collections, a Broadway opening, or cocktails at the Ritz – with an
effortless ease and assurance.’ At its most daring, Eric’s work inhabits a
similar territory to art – the remarkable economy of line in a May 1935 cover
for Vogue has echoes of Matisse – and always retained its charm, even after his
descent into alcoholism.
But it was the arrival of
Carmel Snow as editor at Harper’s Bazaar in 1933 that provided a wider canvas
for illustrators; she commissioned Jean Cocteau, Christian Berard, and Marcel Vertès, a Hungarian artist
who also collaborated with Elsa Schiaparelli, designing her striking perfume
bottles and advertising. When Snow appointed the modernist graphic designer
Alexey Brodovitch as art director of Bazaar in 1934, the magazine became ever more
ambitious; soon afterwards introducing the surrealist work of Salvador Dali.
(His first feature, entitled ‘Imaginative Suggestions for This Summer in
Florida’, included drawings of evening gowns made of coral and roses.)
Not that Harper’s Bazaar had the monopoly on a golden age of
illustration, as Downton’s compilation makes abundantly clear. Consider Bernard
Blossac’s work for Jacques Fath and Christian Dior (‘no one ever painted the
curve of a woman’s back with such languid grace’, says Downton, admiringly),
and also for the French magazine, L’Officiel, where Blossac’s sketches recorded
the comings and goings of fashionable Paris with a deftly elegant toch. Then
there was Tom Keogh’s brilliantly colourful illustrations for French Vogue in
the late Forties and early Fifties, with his iridescent palette of citrus
yellow, vivid orange, emerald green, shocking pink, that look no less airily
modern now than they did at the time.
But for all their élan and brio, the work of fashion illustrators was
soon to be squeezed out by the predominance of a new generation of
photographers – led by Richard Avedon and Irving Penn – as the publishers of
Vogue and Bazaar noted that news stand sales tended to increase when a
photograph, rather than a drawing, ran on the front cover. Carmel Snow battled
with her legendary proprietor, William Randolph Hearst, to keep illustration in
Harper’s Bazaar (and Vertès continued to contribute some remarkable covers),
but in general, artists were challenged to prove that they could offer something
very different to the potency of photography.
Amongst the most versatile was René Bouché, who navigated his
way between advertising and editorial, fashion and reportage, society
portraiture and travel assignments. His status as a Vogue fashion illustrator
remained sufficiently high for him to be accorded a suite at the Crillon when
he was covering the Paris collections, but it is as a portraitist that Downton
most admires Bouché; particularly for the ‘lightening veracity’ of his charcoal
sketches of Marella Agnelli, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Marlene Dietrich. The
latter rated Bouché’s portrait so highly that she used it to advertise her
concert appearances until her retirement; evidence, perhaps, of the graceful appeal
of a line drawing, over and above the harsher eye of a camera. As Downton
remarks, ‘I love the fact that one of the most photographed women of the 20th
century should choose to be represented by an illustration.’
He also focuses on the work of Kenneth Paul Block, a
forty-year veteran at Women’s Wear Daily (on staff as an illustrator until
1992), as expressive in black and white newsprint as glossy colour, and more compelling
than much of the photographic competition. ‘Compare Block’s gestural, dynamic
view of fashion shows in Paris or New York with the pedestrian catwalk
photography of the time and the difference is telling,’ says Downton. ‘The
photographs give you the detail; Block puts you in the front row.’ He also
celebrates the exuberant work of Antonio Lopez, whose work embodied the spirit
of Sixties pop culture and Op Art, as surely as Rene Gruau defined Dior’s New
Look two decades before; and onwards to Tony Viramontes, whose dynamic
illustrations of Eighties fashion are every bit as evocative of the era as a
song by David Bowie.
Finally, to Downton’s contemporary portraits, which possess
the grace often lacking from overly manipulated modern photography. Like all
the best masters of this curiously hybrid genre, his work prompts yet another
question: is it true art or mere illustration? Certainly, he is able to capture
the very essence of fashion – so often regarded as the most elusive of art
forms – and as such deserves to stand the test of time in an otherwise
ephemeral age.
