Monday, April 06, 2009

Tom Lovell: "...this youthful-looking, soft-spoken man..."

Last week we looked at the work of several artists who regularly did work for True magazine art director, Norman Kent. I didn't manage to get to every artist Kent featured in his September 1954 article in American Artist magazine. Among those whom I regretfully skipped over was Tom Lovell. I've been meaning to do a week on Lovell for a very long while now -- and since Norman Kent wrote a feature piece on him just a couple of years later (December 1956), this seems like an opportune time to do so.


Kent wrote, "Perhaps the greatest compliment we can pay [Tom Lovell] - and one that should cause him no embarrassment when he sees it in print - is that he is as successful with true-life adventure stories as he is with romantic fiction."


Norman Kent had a lot of nice things to say about Tom Lovell... and the article covers some very interesting ground, describing Lovell's meticulous working methods as well as providing the essential biographical details.


So let's (finally!) spend some time taking a closer look at the work of a man Norman Kent described as "this youthful-looking, soft-spoken man [whose] work has an undated look which removes it from the ephemeral and places it in the category of the older and better tradition."


* My Tom Lovell Flickr set.

4 comments:

  1. Tom Lovell die some wonderful historical paintings. For National Geographic he did a painting of Vikings that was accurate and a
    beautiful painting. One of the best painters working as an illustrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why do I not know everything about this guy?? His work is phenomenal! He's right up there with Loomis and Frank McCarthy as far as I'm concerned. He has that lusty paint style that drives me bonkers. Leif, thanks for the creation of your Lovell folder of art as well as for the info on this genius.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tom Lovell was a genius and I am so glad you are giving him his due.
    His paintings for the Book of Mormon and National Geographic are unmatched. Great post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had found a bargain in a bookshop a few years ago: "The Art of Tome Lowell: An Invitation to History" (German version - Die Geschichte Amerikas in Bildern). It was so compelling - I bought it at once.
    The major part of this book contains illustrations from the times of the Native Americans. Horses, buffaloes, indians, landscapes, everything so vividly rendered and with so much respect for a great ancient tradition.

    ReplyDelete