Illustrators XXX: The Society of Illustrators Thirtieth Annual of American Illustration

by Art Weithas (Editor), Tom Wolfe (Introduction)

In addition to over 500 of the best of America's illustrations, this year's Illustrators Annual celebrates 30 years of the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame with a special 4-page gatefold devoted these great artists. An introduction by best-selling author Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of Vanities, The Right Stuff) gives an overview of the cultural impact of illustration from the days of Howard Pyle onward.

As always, a jury of top professionals went through 8,000 entries to choose the best in the Editorial, Book, Advertising and Institutional categories. From the selected pieces the jury awarded seven Gold Medals and eleven Silver Medals. All are reproduced in this full-color, 329-page volume printed to the highest standards.

In addition to the Hall of Fame retrospective are the recipients for 1988: René Bouché, Pruett Carter and Robert McCall. James McMullan is profiled as the latest Hamilton King Award winner.

Illustrators 30 is the most lavish in this superb series of illustration annuals. It is an indispensable source of reference and inspiration for art buyers, students and illustrators.

329 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this thinking that Tom Wolfe was going to play a larger role in it than he did; there is a title overlaid over the dust jacket that reads “Tom Wolfe: America’s Great Illustrators”. In fact, though, “America’s Great Illustrators”, while a good read, is just a three-page essay at the front (and poorly edited or typeset).

This is, otherwise, a frustratingly interesting collection of art, mostly from, if I’m reading it right, 1988. There’s a lot of stuff that looks like it was inspired by early-eighties OMNI and a lot of stuff that very much reminds me of the eighties. There are four award categories presented: Editorial, Book, Advertising, and Institutional. I’m not at all sure what Institutional means; it appears to be mostly advertising.

It’s a lot of great art, but the “frustratingly” comes because there is no context to any of it. Each piece lists the artist and, potentially, the art director, agency, and client. But the Editorial section doesn’t include the context of what the art was actually commenting on, nor does the Book section include how the art was used in the book or even what the book is. Advertising and Institutional is a little more self-explanatory, though even then advertising for large businesses could have been used for any number of subsidiaries and products. As David Ogilvy complained in Ogilvy on Advertising, award-winning advertising often forgets that it’s advertising an actual product. For many of the pieces presented here what’s actually being advertised is not at all obvious.

I recognized very few of the artists, and most of them are comic book artists: Art Spiegelman has a cover for Raw in the Book category, Bill Sienkiewicz has an advertisement for Stray Toasters in the Advertising category, and the Society’s Permanent Collection had recently acquired a piece by Jack Davis titled “Caveman”. There’s also a Mort Drucker MAD cover in the sponsors section in the back, from ARTCO.