Wednesday, October 14, 2009

r-e-s-p-e-c-t


Some folks are still surprised that an illustrator can offer up something worthwhile. It seems silly to me that the subject continues to be debated.

Gibson was treated like a rock star during his lifetime, yet more than one critic has flung the word ‘illustrator’ at Andy Wyeth as an insult.

Perhaps after all these years, it is the art critics who remain the clueless ones. But they do have a lot of cerebral baggage they have to peer through in order to see things, so we should cut them some slack.

I had a chance to voice my own take on the subject when asked to write a review for The Seattle Times of an Al Hirschfeld exhibit at the Frye Museum.

2 comments:

Jaime Temairik said...

Awesome review, Paul!

Illustrators have always been some of my favorite artists so it's hard to imagine anyone poopooing them. Hopefully all good art critics are done pretending, as you quoted.

Can't wait to go to the Frye now, thanks! Also makes me want to watch The Line King again.

Paul Schmid said...

I've not seen the Line King, gotta pop that on my Netflix Q!