ILLUSTRATOR #10, DAVID DOWNTON

David Downton is a renowned fashion illustrator born in 1959 in Kent, England who has been in Paris Haute Couture shows for more than a decade. He started his illustration career in 1984 when he worked for several projects from advertising, packaging to illustration fiction. After working for many years, he then was asked by some of the largest fashion magazine companies including Paris Couture shows in 1996. Since then David has become widely known as a fashion illustrator and his name has appeared in magazines in every part of the world. Some of David’s commercial clients include Tiffany’s New York, SAKS 5th Avenue, Selfridges, Burberry, and the British Fashion Council. His works have been exhibited in galleries all over the world such as USA, China, Australia, UK, and some Asian countries. In 1998, he started collaborating with a series of portraits of some of the world’s most beautiful models like Dita Von Teese, Erin O’Connor, Paloma Picasso, Catherine Deneuve, and Carmen Dell’Orefice.

In 2007, he was commissioned by Browns to design its Chritmas window display for the South Moulton Street Store. Shortly after that, his works was featured on some magazines cover produced by Daily Telegraph and Cally Blackman’s 100 Years of Fashion Illustrator. He is a professor at London College of Fashion and eventually honored by the Academy of Art University, San Francisco as an honorary doctorate. Moreover, his book is expected to be published featuring a collection of the work of several artists from Andy Warhol to Rene Bouche. The book is so named Master’s of Fashion Illustration.  

 I was unduly impressed by his lavish illustration which is clean, classical with delicate brush strokes and use light to dark palettes in his colour choices. He has captured the essence and spirit of women and fashion like no other image maker before him.

ILLUSTRATOR #9, RICHARD GRAY

A best-poke fashion illustrator, Richard Gray lived and worked in London. Whilst he was still a fashion student at Middlesex Polytechnic, he was commissioned by Anna Piaggi to make drawings for her pages in Vogue Italia and for the Eighties avant garde magazine Vanity.

Since then, Gray has collaborated with some of Fashion’s greatest names including Alexander McQueen, AgentProvocateur, Vivienne Westwood, Julien MacDonald and Givenchy as well as stars from the Entertainment Industry such as Kylie Minogue and Britney Spears. He has illustrated the couture shows for The Observer and The Independent and his work has been used, amongst others, by a host of Vogue titles, VMagazine, Madame Figaro, amongst many others. 

Gray had a special working relationship with the late Alexander McQueen and for his SS08 show La Dame Bleue, which was dedicated to Isabella Blow, Gray created a poster sized portrait of Blow which was used on the show's invitation. Other projects have seen Gray exhibit work in the windows of Milan’s Via Della Spiga and the V&A where he designed and made an installation called Morpho-illogical as part of Anna Piaggi’s exhibition Fashion-ology.

 He have since become part of the V&A Magazine’s permanent collection of fashion drawings, and a selection of the newly acquired illustrations will be featured in an upcoming book from V&A Publishing entitled Illustrating Fashion, which is being written by Abraham Thomas.

The thing I love about Gray's work is the polygonal aspect in which he treats his characters and the way that lines and shapes break up and balance the composition perfectly. Everything fits into place so well, Gray's a master at working from realist pencil to expressionist-style shapes and proportions, then creating something that combines both. His exotic and explosive use of colour is also something a lot of illustrators find difficult to do so.

  

ILLUSTRATOR #8, ANDY WARHOL

   

       Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh and spent his childhood there. He moved to Manhattan after graduating from the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh as a graduate in Pictorial Design and actively pursued work as a fashion illlustrator. His very first job in fashion industry was drawing shoes for the fashion pages for Glamour magazine and famously illustrating an article called Success is a Job in New York.Then, he was regularly commissioned by Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar. 

He created drawings for I. Miller advertisements and art work for the windows of Bonwit Teller. He even was commissioned by Columbia Records and Tiffany & Co. The ‘a’ at the end of Warhola was dropped as part of this gradual self promotion and self invention and he quickly became one of the most sought-after illustrators in America. He set up Andy Warhol Enterprises Inc. to handle his business.
In the 1960s, Warhol developed into the world’s foremost Pop Artist. Warhol's art encompassed many forms of media, including hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music.
The body of work Warhol created in this period is now considered to be amongst the most important and influential in the post war era. 

His witty drawings with colorful colors as his signature style. The inspirations came from his daily day and also his ability to elevate something ordinary to extraordinary. Sprinkled with Warhol's perceptively funny observations.Warhol died whilst in recovery from a routine gall bladder surgery in 1987. Plans to house The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh were announced in 1989, two years after the establishment of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York. It holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is noted as the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.

 
 

ILLUSTRATOR #7, René Gruau

René Gruau embarked on his career as a fashion illustrator in 1924 in Paris and died at the age of 95 year-old. During 1940‘s and 50‘s, he became a favorite of the haute couture world, collaborated with Femina, Marie-Claire, L'Officiel, L'Album Du Figaro and other “high-style” magazines. Some of Gruau’s best work can be seen in the dramatic visual statements he rendered for Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Hubert de Givenchy. It is where the New Look was born. Nevertheless, His most memorable partnership was with Christian Dior, whom he worked with for almost 40 years. Gruau has created over forty original illustrations for Christian Dior Parfums, sketches, magazines and poster adverts.

In 1948, he was asked to illustrate for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue before becoming the exclusive artist for FLAIR. He also produced stunningly beautiful advertisements for the LIDO, MOULIN ROUGE and BEMBERG. Gruau continued to work for the greatest names in Haute Couture such as Balmain, Fath, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Rochas whilst also producing fashion drawings for ELLE, Vogue, France, Madame Figaro and L'Officiel de la Couture. Moreover, Gruau’s works are collected and exhibited by the finest art institutions including the Louvre in Paris. Rene Gruau’s artistic passion, intensity and technical brilliance have left a high-water mark on art history.  

A classic beauty, grace and sensual elegance and also the use of minimal line of strokes as his signature style.  The quality of the visual appeal of his glamorous and radiant  “beautiful people” is at once bold and languid. Gruau’s artwork is celebrated internationally noted as its exceptional and masterful line, and its timeless, enduring style. What I love about his painting is, he creates so much with so little, so simple yet so effective and his amazing uses of colours and technique.