Back in September 2011, I did a post on Volume 1 of the Childcraft How and Why Library. In that post I showed a papercraft illustration by Russell Jackson. I've had a few inquiries since then about Jackson.
I admire the skill and craftsmanship that went into this illustration and the photography.
I always intended to follow up with a post on Jackson, but a total lack of information about him has made that impossible, at least for me. To make things worse in my quest, there weren't any more color photos in Childcraft
of his illustrations or on the web.
There are several black/white photos of small chapter illustrations in Childcraft that didn't reproduce well, technology being so different then, but I did select two of the better ones.
And this all that I can find in my 15 volume Childcraft or anywhere of Russell Jackson's work. Sigh.
I did however find other papercraft illustrations done by another equally talented artist, Bill Rhodes. But unfortunately more of the same - I couldn't find any information on Rhodes either except for one clue.
The illustration credits in Childcraft for Bill Rhodes credit him and Stephens, Biondi, De Cicco, Inc., a well known advertising and editorial art studio in Chicago, Illinois.
I came across a link to Stephens, Biondi, De Cicco, Inc. in a post done by Leif Peng on one of his blogs, Female Illustrators of the mid-20th Century, which led me to the below ad for them.
image via leifpeng's photostream
It's likely both of these talented gentlemen did advertising related work, which could account for the lack of information on them given the time period. If you have information on either Jackson or Rhodes, please share. It's always frustrating to arrive at a dead end with this type of thing.
This type of media that Jackson and Rhodes worked in is also called paper model or card model and is related to origami. Introduced in the early 1900's, it became popular during World War II in part because paper was not in short supply as many other items were.
There are many artists currently working in papercraft and other paper media making wonderful art. This media lends itself beautifully to children's books. Below are some examples below for you to peruse:
3D Paper Art by Cheong-ah Hwang via WonderHowTo
British Artist Su Blackwell via inhabitat
image via THE META PICTURE
image via DESIGN ILLUSTRATION
Outstanding work by artist Helen Musselwhite
Just fabulous! If they had illustrations in adult books, I'd probably read them more!
ReplyDeleteJill, thanks so much for this wonderful post - I was thrilled to see the other two pieces by Russell Jackson! The pieces by Bill Rhodes, as well as the rest of your selections, were also fantastic. I will use the information you provided to do some of my own research and report back if there's anything to be found.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping that someone familiar with Jackson or Rhodes will see this and be able to shed some more light on these guys!
-Mark
PS
ReplyDeleteBrittney Lee, a visual development artist at Disney, is also doing some incredibly beautiful, colorful cut paper work.
Here's a link to her "It's A Small World" tribute - if you like it, there's plenty more to be found if you poke around her site!
http://britsketch.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-small-world-after-all.html
-Mark
Mark, glad you liked the post and thanks for the link to Brittney Lee.
ReplyDeleteThis is the closest to what I remember as a child when I was in grade school back in the late 60s I can remember a 3D book,I have no idea the name all I can remember is a little girl in the book and her room I know this is silly but do you know how I could find it I am 53 now and have never forgotten it.I went to Pleasant Hill High School in the same name little country town i Louisiania,please help me if you can it was a library book and I constantly checked it out the school is now gone
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, wish I could help you, but that doesn't ring any bells. The best I can give you is to search google for images. I hope you are able to find it. Sometimes these things happen when we least expect it.
ReplyDeleteI just now came across this. As it happens, I'm sitting reading this with Bill Rhodes right now (he's my father). He did indeed work for Stephens Biondi & DeCicco for many years as designer. He designed logos, and rendered layouts for ads for many years. He's a great guy, and he's totally thrilled that someone is still enjoying his work! Thank you so much for posting this!
ReplyDelete