Illustration: A Visual History

This unique visual history of the art of illustration, by the foremost historian of graphic design and a well-known illustrator and designer, joins the authors’ previous Graphic Style as an indispensable resource for anyone interested in art, design, and popular culture.

 

Illustration has long been a significant popular art—and is often more visible, recognizable, and memorable than “higher” arts. Editorial and advertising illustration in all its many forms is so integral to our understanding of news, views, literature, and commerce that it is easily taken for granted. Nonetheless, it has an impressive history and remains a vital influence on visual culture. This book is a rich chronicle, celebration, and survey of well over a century of illustration. It deftly reveals the visual mannerisms, quirks, and tics that characterize drawn, painted, and digitized illustrations in different styles, and places leading illustrators in historical context.