CARL ERICKSON

American illustrator, Carl Oscar August Erickson was born in Joliet, Illinoise 1892. Carl Erickson would received his formal art education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Although limited to only two years of schooling, his artistic talent attracted the likes of Marshall Field, Lord & Thomas and other well known advertisement accounts in Chicago. In 1914 Eric would move to New York to continue his advertising illustrations.

In 1916 Eric made his debut in  Vogue magazine and by 1925 he was a regular artist on the magazine. He would go on to dominate the field of fashion illustration for over thirty five years, creating illustrations for French publications and drawing society portraits. Becoming a pillar of the illustrious magazine, Eric worked together with Rene Willaumez Bouet and later Rene Bouche. He was known for his drawings of people in fashionable settings and would stress the importance of detail in his artistry. He continued to work for Vogue until the 1950s.

The Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective of his drawings shortly after his death in 1959.

Most of Eric's illustrators has lots of overlap, diminishing size, surface lines and foreshortening. You can observe on how every line and shape and detail seem to direct your eye right to the centre of interest, the centre of interest being look. They give the impression of having sprung to life without suffering the usual labor pains. But his performance looks too easy; its nonchalance is deceptive. It is not accomplished without a struggle. 

Erickson indeed is a hard-working man, a very serious artist who is usually practicing when not actually performing. In spare moments he is usually drawing from the model and his sketchbook goes with him to the restaurant and the theatre, capturing the elegance around him.

Eric took his sketchpad wherever he went (like what is mentioned above), and drew his models using intensive bright colors and black lines which capture their gestures perfectly. His sketches speak of the elegance and the beauty of the fashion in the 1940’s, and as Reed himself would say, Carl Erickson’s “drawings and paintings are authoritative because he knew his subjects and their world; his taste and beautiful draftsmanship reveal him to be an artist of permanent importance.”