Illustration Art Gallery

The very best from the wide, sometimes overlooked, world of illustration art, including original artwork for book illustrations and covers, comic books and comic strips, graphic novels, magazines, film animation cels, newspaper strips, poster art, album covers, plus superb fine art reproductions and high quality art prints.

Our gallery brings together artists from all over the world and from many backgrounds, including fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, education, sport, history, nature, technology, humour, glamour, architecture, film & tv, whimsy, even political satire and caricature.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

David Nockels

David Nockels was a prolific contributor to magazines and books, specialising in nature, animals and the environment. His illustrations began appearing in Look and Learn in around 1967 and he was also a regular contributor to World of Wonder in the early 1970s, at which time he was living in Shooter's Hill and also acting as an occasional agent.

David Nockels contributed illustrations to many books on wildlife subjects between 1967-79, amongst the many titles he contributed to including Arthur by Ernest Dudley (1970) and the Atlas series from Heinemann (Atlas of Wildlife, Atlas of Plant Life, Atlas of the Sea, 1972-74); Young World Productions, Hamlyn, Bodley Head, Salamandar and Ward Lock also published his work.

In 1980 he began working for Methuen Children's Books and wrote and illustrated a series of pop-up books entitled 'Animals in Action' (1981) as well as two children's story books, Hungry Little Chimpanzee and Little Lost Duckling, both published in 1982. Nockels also wrote and illustrated the 'Naughty Pets Board Book' series for Deans International (1985), which included the titles as Percy and Katie in Trouble, Billie and Bertie at the Seaside, Bobby and Tom have a Feast and Beckie and Jamie on the Farm.


Examples of David Nockels' artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Kevin Nowlan

American artist Kevin Nowlan has been active in the comics' fan press since the early 1980s. Born in Chandron, Nebraska, on 7 February 1958, Kevin C. Nowlan graduated from High School and attended the Salina, Kansas Area Vocational-Technical School, where he learned the basics of art, layout and design. After two years he took a job with a local printing firm creating and designing brochures, letter headings and adverts.

He submitted illustrations to The Comics Journal and was commissioned by editor Gary Groth to produce a number of covers, beginning with an X-Men cover for issue 68 (November 1981); Nowlan went on to produce covers and spot illustrations for both The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes (including a fully-painted Supergirl cover for the latter) over the next couple of years.

His work was noticed by inker Terry Austin and Nowlan found himself pencilling a fill-in issue of Doctor Strange  (#57) before taking over Moon Knight from Bill Sienkiewicz. This proved to be a disaster and a he quit after only three-and-a-half issues; however, the work proved popular and he was offered more work with Marvel (Daredevil, a Nightcrawler or Long Shot mini-series) and by DC (Star Trek, a Batman graphic novel, an Aquaman mini-series), all of which he turned down. Instead, he drew strips for National Lampoon and concentrated on posters and covers for the major comics' publishers, which allowed him to draw strips such as "Grimwood's Daughter" (a back-up strip in Dalgoda) for Fantagraphics.

He has subsequently worked for both DC and Marvel, drawing The Outsiders and Green Lantern Corps for the former and New Mutants for the latter. Complaints from readers that he had made the Mutants too cartoony, led to Nowlan working primarily as an inker from 1988. In this role he has continued to work for Marvel, DC. Wildstorm and Image. Some of the highlights of this work includes Batman: Sword of Azrael (1992), Aliens: Salvation (1993), Superman vs. Aliens (1995) and Superman: Distant Fires (1997). In 1999, he began drawing the adventures of young boy-genius "Jack B. Quick" for Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories.

More recently he has been involved in the Batman Confidential series and "Metal Man" in DC's weekly Wednesday Comics, inking the pencils of José Luis García-López, and the one-shot Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish (2011), written by Mike Mignola.

Nowlan was the subject of Eric Nolen-Weatherington's collection, Modern Masters Volume 4, published by Twomorrows Publishing in 2004. He lives in Kansas with his wife, Deanne.


Examples of Kevin Nowlan's artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Alexander Oliphant

Alexander George Oliphant was a Scottish artist, born on 2 May 1911, who was exhibiting paintings in the 1930s at which time he was living in Grangemouth. Oliphant was living in London (at 30 Bedford Chambers, Piazza, City of London) at least as early as 1945 and moved to 9 Graham Terrace, Westminster around 1948, then 23 St George's Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, around 1949.

For at least a decade [1952-62], Oliphant had a studio at 4 Cavaye Studios, Cavaye Place, Kensington SW10. Around 1962, he moved to 55 Crompton Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, SW3, where he was to live until his death in the autumn of 1971, aged 60.

He contributed to Eagle Annual, Daily Mirror Book for Boys, and was the artist who illustrated 'Sea Change', Richard Armstrong's award-winning novel, and the series "Sink the Scharnhorst!", in Ranger in 1965-66. He was subsequently a prolific contributor of Second World War illustrations to the early issues of World of Wonder shortly before his death.

He was married to Thora M. Goldsmith (nee Clee), the former wife of William L. Goldsmith, in Paddington in 1947. Thora, born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, in 1911, died in London in 1968, aged 56.

You can find original artwork by Alexander Oliphant for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

José Ortiz

Of all the Spanish artists who found themselves working for British publishers during the British comics' boom of the 1950s-1960s, José Ortiz was one of the longest survivors. Such is his longevity, that he has fans for each of the decades he worked in the UK: those who grew up in the 1960s will remember his as the artist of countless war libraries  as well as UFO Agent and its sequel Smokeman in Eagle; fans in the 1970s are more likely to remember his work in nursery or girls comics or his eight month run as the artist of "The Persuaders" in TV Action; in the 1980s he helped relaunch the Eagle with fantasies "The Tower King" and "The Fifth Horseman" and went on to draw the long-running horror series "The Thirteenth Floor" and various tales of the genetically-adapted warrior "Rogue Trooper".

At the same time, Ortiz is widely recognised as one of the masters of comic art in his native Spain as the artist of "Hombre" and "Burton y Cyb" and one of the most popular contributors to the American horror magazines published by James Warren.

Born José Ortiz Moya in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, on 1 September 1932, the son of a painter of watercolours, he was the younger brother of Leopoldo Ortiz by almost exactly two years, but the two progressed through the comics industry almost in parallel during the 1950s. After winning a competition held by Chicos magazine, at the age of 16 Ortiz began working for Manuel Gago's Editorial Maga publishing company on the series El Espia [The Spy] in 1951, which he signed Zitro (Ortiz backwards). Gago was the hugely popular creator of "El Guerrero del Antifaz" [The Warrior Mask] and had moved to Valencia, where the strip was published by Juan Bautista Sorianos' Editorial Valencia. Ortiz and others — Leopoldo Ortiz and Luis Bermejo amongst them — joined Gago, Miguel Quesada and Pastor Eduardo Vañó in Valencia, helping to establish what has become known as the Escuela Valenciana or Valencian school of art.

Ortiz worked extensively for Editorial Maga for the next decade, working on El Capitan Don Nadie [Captain Don Nobody] (1952), El Principe Pablo [Prince Paul] (covers only, 1953-54), Coleccion Comandos (1954), Sebastián Vargas (1954), Don Barry, El Terremoto [Dan Barry, Earthquake] (1954), Balin (1955), Pantera Negra [Black Panther] (1956), El duque negro [The Black Duke] (1957), Apache (1958), Bengala (1959) and Johnny Fogata (1960). Of these, Ortiz was probably best-known for the western adventures of Don Barry, which ran for 76 issues and 3 'annuals' in 1954-57; Ortiz also drew the first 31 issues of another popular western, Johnny Fogata.

By the late 1950s, Ortiz was also establishing himself with other publishers, such as Toray, with such strips as Sigur el Wikingo [Sigur the Viking] and stories of the wild west in the anthology Hazañas del Oeste; for Bruguera he produced stories for Bisonte Extra Ilustrada, distributed almost exclusively in Argentina, and adaptations for Colección Historias such as "Los Viajes de Gulliver" [Gulliver's Travels] and "Las Cruzadas" [The Crusades].

Ortiz had made his British debut in 1957 with "In Love's Trap" in D. C. Thomson's early romantic pocket library Love and Life; other early sales to Thriller Picture Library and Top Spot followed, but it was 1960 before he established himself as a regular in Ted Bensberg's war libraries department, producing three dozen stories for War, Battle, War at Sea and Air Ace libraries between 1960-67. In 1962-63 he drew the short-lived "Caroline Baker, Barrister-at-Law" for the Daily Express, preparing for the task of illustrating the adventures of a female lawyer by coming to the UK and making sketches at a magistrate's court.

In 1964, Ortiz took over the character of John Brody for Boys' World and produced "The Green Men" in colour on the rear page for seven weeks. He later took over the adventures of "UFO Agent" Major Grant in the original Eagle, which, exploiting the popularity for American superheroes that followed the appearance of the Batman TV show, became the superhero "Smokeman", then, when that bubble burst within the year, became a member of the C.I.D. When "Grant (C.I.D.)" came to an end, Ortiz continued to work for Eagle on the aerial pirates yarn, "Sky Buccaneers".

Ortiz also found work in the pages of Lion where he drew "Trelawny's Mob", "The Phantom Viking" and "The 10,000 Disasters of Dort" over the next couple of years. However, he found himself in something of a backwater after that, drawing one-off romantic stories for Valentine and Romeo and illustrations and fairy tales for Once Upon a Time. He briefly resurged in the pages of TV Action drawing "The Persuaders" and was drawing for D. C. Thomson's Diana nad Warlord when the opportunity came to work for James Warren's magazines in the USA.

Ortiz's agent, Josep Toutain of Selecciones Illustrades, created  for publication in Spain and in the US in the early 1970s and - like many of his contemporaries - Ortiz saw the American market as a way of escaping the strictures of the British comics' market and earn a better return for his efforts. With James Warren's horror comics Vampirella, Eerie and others, he found the market he was looking for and, as David Roach records in The Warren Companion, "At Warren he embraced the 'new look' with relish to produce a succession of superbly-drawn stories such as "Coffin", "Jackass", and his masterpiece, "The Apocalypse" (which ran in Eerie #62-65). This looked like it wasn't so much inked as feverishly scratched out of a morass of black ink and seething textures." He was named Warren's Best All Around Artist in 1974.


Although Ortiz could not maintain this intensity, he became Warren's most prolific artist, contributing 119 strips to the Warren magazines, abandoning the UK market but maintaining a presence in Spain and Europe with strips such as "El Cuervo" for Kung-Fu (1976), "Los Grandes Mitos del Oeste" [Great Myths of the West] (1978) and El Nuevo Tarzan (1979-81).

As the Warren magazines lost circulation, Ortiz found a new market in Spain where new comics aimed at an older audience such as Cimoc, for which Ortiz teamed up with Antonio Segura on the western series "Hombre" in 1981. In 1983 he teamed up with his nephew Leopoldo Sanchez who, with writer Mariano Hispano,was co-founder of Ediciones Metropol; Ortiz contributed a number of strips to their three titles, Metropol, Mocambo and KO Comics, including "Hombre" in the latter. Although Ediciones Metropol lasted only a year, Ortiz was able to concentrate on contributing strips to the new adult comics published by Toutain Editor, such as "Las mil caras de Jack el Destripador" [Jack the Ripper] (1984) for Creepy, and Norma Editorial. In 1987 he created, with Segura, "Burton y Cyb" for Zona 84 (and, later, Comix Internacional) and "Morgan", which debuted as "Ives" in Metropol before being revived in Cimoc.

During the same period, Ortiz was a regular presence in Eagle in Britain, producing the sole comic strip for the newly relaunched boys' photo-weekly. The paper soon became a more regular comic, for which Ortiz continued to contribute "The Amstor Computer", "News Team" and the long-running "The Thirteenth Floor", which debuted in Scream! in 1984 and continued in Eagle & Scream! until 1987.

Ortiz also contributed to 2000AD, mostly illustrating "Rogue Trooper", but also single episodes of "The Helltrekkers" and "Judge Dredd" (1987). His last strips in the UK were "Kid Cops" for Eagle (1988) nad "Kitten Magee" in WildCat and the merged Eagle & WildCat (1988-89). Contemporarily, he also briefly worked on Sabre for Eclipse and a number of stories appeared in Heavy Metal.

In the early 1990s Ortiz drew "Bud O'Brien" (for Torpedo) and "Ozone" (for L'Eternauta), and contributed two volumes to a lavish collection of books from Planeta-Deagostini with the overall title Tales of the New World: #2 La civilización Inca: Los Hijos del Sol (1991) and #25 Orígenes del hombre Americano: Los Primeros (1992).

For the majority of the 1990s and 2000, Ortiz has worked for Sergio Bonelli on the famous Italian western Tex. He has also drawn episodes of "Ken Parker" and "Magico Vento" for their respective titles.

In 1998, Ortiz was awarded the Parparajote de Oro by the Asociación de Amigos del Tebeo de la Región de Murcia.

Examples of Jose Ortiz's artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.