Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fischetti Travel Sketches

Sketches from
the
John Fischetti Manuscript Collection

at
Columbia College Chicago



1945 trip to France

"Main Street St Laurent Brittanny"

France, 1945



1948 trip to New York

New York, 1948



1949 trip to Denmark a



1949 trip to Denmark



1949 trip to Denmark b

"American shoes proved to be much more interesting
to the Danes than the American wearing them"



1949 trip to Denmark d

"The Danes really live when they greet each other"



1949 trip to Denmark e

"5 O'Clock Rush"



1949 trip to Denmark f

Denmark, 1949



1949 trip to France a

"Traffic"



1949 trip to France

France, 1949



1953 trip to France

"Journal de Paris - McCarthy: 'J'accuse!!' "

Paris, 1953



1960 trip to Italy a



1960 trip to Italy b



1960 trip to Italy

"Rialto Bridge Venice"

Italy, 1960




1961 trip to Washington DC b



1961 trip to Washington DC

President Kennedy's Oval Office

Washington DC, 1961



1970 trip to Chicago

"Other side of the tracks -- Canal Street"

Chicago, 1970



1970 trip to Washington DC c

"It's windy"

Washington DC, 1970



All illustrations are © the Estate or Assignees of John Fischetti.
The images have been posted here with permission.

"John Fischetti was born in Brooklyn, New York on Sept. 27, 1916, the youngest in an Italian family of four children. His urge to draw developed early and, in fact, he graduated from the Pratt Technical Institute before earning his high school diploma. After graduation he went to California and worked for the Disney Studio.

Eye strain forced him to give up animation and he moved to Chicago where he began working for Coronet and Esquire magazines. When Marshall Field started the Chicago Sun and bought up the Coronet/Esquire syndicate, Fischetti began doing political cartoons for the Sun; however, World War II intervened and he spent the latter part of it cartooning for Stars and Stripes.

When his Sun job was no longer available after the war, he moved to New York and joined Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), and then the New York Herald Tribune. It folded in 1966 and he moved back to Chicago and the Chicago Daily News, where he was given complete autonomy to choose his styles and topics.

Fischetti was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968. After the Daily News ceased publication in 1978, he finished his career at the Chicago Sun-Times. John Fischetti died on Nov. 18, 1980." [source]

Following Fischetti's death, an annual editorial cartoon award was established in his name, administered by the School of Journalism at the Columbia College in Chicago. [link]

The John Fischetti Manuscript Collection was recently digitised by Columbia College and includes a large number of the artist's sketch books encompassing original political cartoons, completed comics, preliminary and rejected drawings and a collection of his travel sketches.

The travel collection is a fascinating record of mid-20th century urban settings in its own right, but it also showcases Fischetti's undeniable talents as an animator, caricaturist, sketch artist, wit and observer. {I confess to not even having seen any of his political/satirical cartoon and comic work yet}

Via the Visual Resources Center blog at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Thanks again Mike!

11 comments :

Martin Klasch said...

Wonderful stuff! Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Amazing artwork.

Debbie Drechsler said...

What a wonderful collection of drawings! Thanks so much for publishing these!

Hence72 said...

hi, pleased to meet you

Your blog looks fantastic

Come and pay a visit some time

Anonymous said...

I love these drawings, so free and lyrical! much in the vein of L. Bemelman and M. Sasek. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

hey, these images are broken links to their corresponding flickr pages! oh no!

peacay said...

OUCH!!! Thanks very much grumblybear, it's now fixed. I'd inadvertently left a space in the image URLs. I'm just sorry noone thought to tell me beforehand.

Please PLEASE tell me if you ever see mistakes: I'm absolutely not infallible!!

Karla said...

These are great! They remind me of some of the book illustrations I grew up with. (You aren't infallible? What the hell is wrong with you?)

rezkarcfitness said...

Very good, like Sajdik Ferenc in Hungary.

Goldy said...

I have no idea where you'd found these vintage images. My grandfather used to show me these illustrations, he loved them. Thanks for your post.

Unknown said...

Proud to call this man my grandfather!

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