Lichtenstein's Theft and the Artists Left Behind 1 1

[comicwiz]

With all due respect Gene, if you posted Arlen's comment to make us believe it's the end all to Heath's commentary, it lacks sympathy, understanding and sincerity.

 

It's the same shallow jab he's often taken at David Barsalou, who has posted frequently in that sad little group Arlen created. Sad because it really should have been a fan page, rather than a group set up to appear as anything more than a vehicle to promote his awful book.

 

Which ironically, was first introduced to me by a shop owner who described it as a sort of "bootleg" - filled with pixelated images, depicting trademarked characters, blown-up from comic panels, without permission from the copyright owners.

 

It was pushed under the pretense that the book probably wouldn't remain on the shelves very long for the reasons previously mentioned. Keep in mind, these are the people who are supposed to be promoting his book.

 

That Facebook thread where he diminishes Heath's strip to nothing more than sour grapes, was filled with opposing views (including mine) and all Arlen kept doing is stifling those opinions. It's also the thread where I came to learn that his "newly revised" edition has a two-page spread paying tribute to Lichtenstein.

 

Funny how views are influenced by new facts and opinion, especially after tying in the shop owners interpretation of his book, his worshipping of Lichtenstein, including the 2-page spread in his book suggesting RL's touch escalated comic art to the status of fine art. I keep hearing that classic Police song "walking in your footsteps" playing in my head.

 

Full circle, I suppose it could only help if RL's estate made some effort, or publicly demonstrated a willingness to donate to HI, if nothing more than to help upkeep the image of his legacy. My deep disdain for the likes of Erro and Rob Granito only become tolerable provided the 1% get to keep RL.

 

And it certainly wouldn't kill his estate to put the copyright infringement nonsense to rest.

 

I personally would love to see David Barsalou crowd-source a documentary on this to bring more awareness to RL's legacy, which to me should be nothing more than a story about a guy who stole/appropriated copious amounts of artwork without attribution, and photocopied comic panels by hand to make millions.

[Prince Namor]

All Granito needed is an agent, an angle, and some wealthy New Yorkers with an eye for 'art' and he could've been a genius.

 

Instead he wallowed in the gutter with the people he stole from and got found out.

 

 

 

[That Ron Dude]

pssst… Drew copies from swipe materials and photos. does he credit the sources? Many times from unit photography shot by guys paid by the day or the film who don't own their work any more than Heath etc ever did.

 

Lichtenstein gets singled out because he worked in the comic book printing style, but he was far from the first or last to reuse others' works.

 

I created celebrity portraits years ago and consulted a lawyer about selling them. The Chaplin that I use as an icon is one of them. The lawyer told me that the people that I did portraits of, and the photographers who took the images I painted from, had rights to my portraits. That bit of advise was worth getting and cost me $500.

 

I spoke to an artist who had worked for Playboy, Esquire, Rolling Stone and the New Yorker who lives down the street. He also works from other people's photos. He told me there had never been a suit of that kind in Canada to create a precedent. He said, though, that one day a million people would be walking around Canada with T-shirts of a painting of some celeb drawn from a photo taken by another party. Then we would have our lawsuit and have a precedent. Made sense.

 

I also met an illustrator who had done at least two Time Magazine covers. One of them, of Einstein done from the famous Karsh photo, was controversial because it was so easy to spot as being from Karsh and wasn't credited. He said that after doing it he got a letter from Karsh's management, not his lawyers, explaining that there is a fee for using Karsh's work in that way. He told me that it was a perfectly reasonable fee and he paid it. He added that he had only been called on using other people's photo's twice in his long career and both times the people on the other side were reasonable.

 

MY CONCLUSIONS: 1.Photographers have the right to work done from their images but in most cases the damage doesn't amount to a hill of beans and is difficult to pursue within the Canadian legal system. 2. People (like me) who are risk averse should avoid taking from other people's images. There are reason's why artist's often sign contracts with a clause saying that they have all rights to the work they are selling. 3. The more the image is changed in the copying the less rights the photographer has over it. If possible, change the photo beyond recognition or, whenever possible, take your own photos.

 

And finally... I think Dan Adkins got sued a couple of times for his swipes. That is rumour though. He did a Warren cover, perhaps of a Mummy grasping onto a man done coldly from a photograph. That might have been one of the lawsuits.

 

[Rip]

I would suggest those comparing the two, to look at them closer, see them in person to understand why Lichtenstein made the changes he did, rather than simply "Photocopy" them. These are NOT simple photocopies. Look at the color Palette, the size, the many other changes. Looking at a Whaam! and Drowning Girl invokes a far different response that the Russ Heath and Tony Abruzzo's originals.

 

Its no secret in the fine art world what these comic sources were. In fact they are a wonderful part of the discussion and often the credited work is right beside them in the gallery.

 

There is a reason why no one is spending millions on Russ Heath or Tony Abruzzo's work.

Yet people like Barsalou are simply too devoted and obtuse to comprehend the art or the zeitgeist in which it took place.

 

 

And here is a better example of the true size of Whaam! while being taken out of storage!

 

 

 

Edit, also Whaam is taken from two issues, not 1

All-American Men of War #89, (on right) and 90 (on left)

Edited November 10, 2014 by Rip

[kav]

Any paint by numbers kit would yield similar results if it was big enough

[500Club]

All Granito needed is an agent, an angle, and some wealthy New Yorkers with an eye for 'art' and he could've been a genius.

 

Instead he wallowed in the gutter with the people he stole from and got found out.

 

An ugly truth, and food for thought.

[Dr. Balls]

There are few artists that I dislike so much that I actually feel the need to speak out towards them. Lichtenstein is one of them.

 

Lichtenstein is a hack and his notoriety comes from the fact that people did not understand that he was repurposing someone elses' work almost exactly and then claiming it as his own with no attribution. This is one of the most unethical things an artist can do.

 

Yes, it looks *slightly* different. He applied the same graphic arts techniques to his work as someone would apply to creating a billboard or other large-format piece of commercial art to be viewed at a distance. He simplified things as any other graphic artist would do - and that, in itself, is not enough to say: "Hey look! Its different!" Color palette, line stroke - these are not revolutionary things, they are techniques specific to the application, that most artists understand. Applying a different technique to the same piece of art does not allow you to put it into your portfolio and say "It's mine, I did it!". Thankfully, there are laws NOW that prohibit you from doing that.

 

He didn't take $4M from Russ Heath. He took Russ Heath's art and claimed it as his own. I don't care if he did it for $5 or $5 million dollars - that makes him a Grade A Assclown.

 

People can have any opinion they want on art - that's what art is about. But defending an artist who's whole reputation and public persona is based on the fact he ripped off other creators and profited from it is really a sad thing to read.

 

Regardless of what his inspiration was, what effect it had on people or on pop art itself - no matter how you explain the work he created - the bottom line is that he ripped off other artists and kept his mouth shut about it while he was ascending to the top of the turd mountain that is Pop Art.

[kav]

People watch 'Art School Confidential' to get a peek at how the fine art world operates.

The ultimate example of selling the sizzle not the steak-that's 'fine art'

[That Ron Dude]

And if you have a lot of time and a little bit of money...

 

The $12 million dollar stuffed shark.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Million-Stuffed-Shark-Economics-Contemporary/dp/0230620590/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415558276&sr=1-1&keywords=12+million+dollar+stuffed+shark

[Rip]

Any paint by numbers kit would yield similar results if it was big enough

 

That's Warhol

 

 

Andy Warhol's Do It Yourself (Landscape), 1962

Edited November 9, 2014 by Rip

[1950's war comics]

There is a fancy new modern art museum near me and I can honestly say that if I bought a painting at good will for 5 bucks, and snuck it in on the museum wall , it would not be out of place.

[dupont2005]

There's someone out there looking at an article about a million dollar comic book and thinking "I have a comic book somewhere in the garage, what's the difference?"

[kav]

yup then they find it and post it on Craig's List

Avengers #234 $50,000

[tv horror]

Warhol is a good example there is a commercial artist out there that designed the Campbell soup package and he was probably paid by work for hire while Warhol's work sold for millions. Credit should be given to the artists that envisaged the work in the first place only using their imagination, even if they were good or bad artists they still deserve the credit.

[Aman619]

oh jeeze. The Campbells soup packaging is fine, but certainly not worth ANY special attention whatsoever when compared to other packaging on supermarket shelves. Not nearly an "award winning" design by any means. Clean and simple and professional is all.

 

ONLY after a Warhol makes it into "something else" and foists it onto the art world in a completely different light was it even thought of as a design by anybody other than that guys boss and the Campbells Art Director/Marketing team back then.

 

this is getting silly. I don't have reference as to the development of what became THAT particular Campbells packaging design, but Im guessing it was a slow maturation from very similar packages beginning back in the 1890s.

 

heres what a 3 second google search turns up, from the NYTimes article in 2011. I was guessing about the year, but it was 65 years before Warhols work in 1962. Nice guess!

 

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/who-made-that-campbells-soup-label/?_r=0

 

 

[Aman619]

an excerpt:

 

Regarding the other elements of the design, “We do not have specific information on who designed the label, mostly because our records indicate that it was a cooperative effort,” Campbell’s corporate archivist, Jonathan Thorn, told me in an e-mail. “Also, the small evolutions of the label in the early years help to indicate this. The Campbell -script for instance is very similar to Joseph Campbell’s own signature, which may have been used as a basis for the label -script.”

[Aman619]

what the heck . heres a copy paste of the entire piece…

 

 

 

 

Who Made That Campbell’s Soup Label?

By HILARY GREENBAUM MAY 9, 2011 3:25 PMMay 9, 2011 3:25 pm 2 Comments

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

 

In 1962, Andy Warhol produced “Campbell’s Soup Cans”: 32 paintings, each representing a flavor of Campbell’s condensed soup. “With these works, Warhol took on the tradition of still-life painting, declaring a familiar household brand of packaged food a legitimate subject in the age of Post-War economic recovery,” according to Christie’s. Warhol appropriated the famous soup can and reinvented it as a work of art. He can be credited with converging the world of high art and supermarket branding, propelling the pop-art movement forward and possibly even boosting the sales of canned soup, but the label that he rode to stardom was not his design at all.

 

Campbell's soup label from 1900.Campbell’s Soup CompanyCampbell’s soup label from 1900.

Sixty-five years earlier, Dr. John T. Dorrance created the first condensed soups for the Campbell Soup Company. Originally, the label that was affixed to those first soup cans was orange and blue. The following year, in 1898, Herberton L. Williams, who subsequently became the company’s treasurer, comptroller and assistant general manager, attended a University of Pennsylvania versus Cornell football game at which Cornell first played in red and white uniforms. Williams was so impressed with the color scheme that he proposed the labels be changed to match.

 

Regarding the other elements of the design, “We do not have specific information on who designed the label, mostly because our records indicate that it was a cooperative effort,” Campbell’s corporate archivist, Jonathan Thorn, told me in an e-mail. “Also, the small evolutions of the label in the early years help to indicate this. The Campbell -script for instance is very similar to Joseph Campbell’s own signature, which may have been used as a basis for the label -script.”

 

The -script “was designed to appeal to the housewife of the time,” Thorn said. “It was intended to look like cursive handwriting of the day that one would find on handwritten recipes, equating to ‘Homemade.’ ”

 

The medallion on the center of the label went through a number of different iterations from 1898 to 1900, ending with the version seen in this post, which represents the medal the Campbell Soup Company received at the Exposition Universelle de 1900 in Paris. Thorn noted: “The 1900 Paris medal was designed to replicate as accurately as possible the actual medal itself. It would be my guess that an engraver or the printing company’s engraver would have been employed to replicate the medal for printing.” That said, the first printer to produce the labels, Sinnickson Chew & Sons Company, is also credited with aiding in the design of the original label.

 

Small adjustments to the label have been made over time, but the original concept is easily visible in all the iterations that have been conceived, making it the icon that it is, Warhol or no Warhol.

[MatterEaterLad]

There are few artists that I dislike so much that I actually feel the need to speak out towards them. Lichtenstein is one of them.

 

Lichtenstein is a hack and his notoriety comes from the fact that people did not understand that he was repurposing someone elses' work almost exactly and then claiming it as his own with no attribution. This is one of the most unethical things an artist can do.

 

Yes, it looks *slightly* different. He applied the same graphic arts techniques to his work as someone would apply to creating a billboard or other large-format piece of commercial art to be viewed at a distance. He simplified things as any other graphic artist would do - and that, in itself, is not enough to say: "Hey look! Its different!" Color palette, line stroke - these are not revolutionary things, they are techniques specific to the application, that most artists understand. Applying a different technique to the same piece of art does not allow you to put it into your portfolio and say "It's mine, I did it!". Thankfully, there are laws NOW that prohibit you from doing that.

 

He didn't take $4M from Russ Heath. He took Russ Heath's art and claimed it as his own. I don't care if he did it for $5 or $5 million dollars - that makes him a Grade A Assclown.

 

People can have any opinion they want on art - that's what art is about. But defending an artist who's whole reputation and public persona is based on the fact he ripped off other creators and profited from it is really a sad thing to read.

 

Regardless of what his inspiration was, what effect it had on people or on pop art itself - no matter how you explain the work he created - the bottom line is that he ripped off other artists and kept his mouth shut about it while he was ascending to the top of the turd mountain that is Pop Art.

 

+1

 

There's a HUGE difference between Lichtenstein's work and Warhol's "Soup Cans".

 

Warhol was essentially holding up a product and calling it pop art. That's cool. But holding up someone else's art and calling it pop art without any kind of attribution, is douchbaggery.

 

 

[kav]

Various entities tried to sue Mad Magazine for the use of Alfred E Neuman till it was determined no one knew when or who first drew that image. It has been traced back to at least the 1800's.

PS this is the original Grim Reaper from 1861:

[Aman619]

I don't theres such a HUUGE difference, but I understand why so many think there is.

 

Do you realize you are being "snobbish" in your disdain for "some" artists and media. You elevate comic book pen and ink "illustration" while denigrating the very similar profession of graphic design.

 

Both require a keen design sense that begins with a blank white page. As a matter of fact, with the separation of pencilling and inking common to comics artwork, who are you actually elevating over the other? The penciller is the graphic designer parallel, while the inker "merely traces" (as its commonly referred to derisively and sarcastically) to the best of his particular talents. The inker relies on the talent of the penciller to a great degree and is NOT the "creator" of the artwork at all… merely the typesetter, to mangle my analogy. The penciller has supplied the layout (the design) upon which the inker applies his contribution to that design.

 

which -- ironically --- is all thats left of the pencillers efforts which get erased out of existence with only the inkers interpretation left to posterity.

 

 

anyway,

Edited November 10, 2014 by aman619