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reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2010-08-13 11:22 pm
reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2010-08-13 11:22 pm
Behind the Cover: Harry Bennett (1/3)
Born in Lewisboro, NY, in 1925 to Anna Karlsson Bennett, a swedish immigrant who had recently been widowed, Harry Bennett was raised in Ridgefield, Ct and went on to serve in the south Pacific during World War ll. He studied art at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and worked as a painter and illustrator back in Connecticut for clients such as Pepsi-Cola and U.S.Keds and he raised 5 children as a freelancer. Tom, his younger son and an artist as well, said: "I lived and breathed his studio and wanted to be him. He is a wonderful, patient, loving man with a brilliant sense of both design and direct power with the plastic medium."
Vintage Romance Covers:
Bennett spent much of his early career shuttling back and forth between New York and his home in Connecticut. Bennett's paintings of women had caught the eye of publishing execs, and he quickly became one of the most sought after gothic romance illustrators. "Because I could paint a woman sowell I was never without work," says Bennett.
The covers were works of art, and are collected to this day. As a simple internet search will reveal, even worn gothic paperbacks with Harry Bennett cover art get special notice. Bennett painted them all large, so he could stay loose and fast."I like to bounce off the easel, I can't do that when I'm standing still," he says.
Not all of Bennett's work in those decades was destined for mass market paperbacks. He also caught the attention of the mainstream art world. The New York Society of Illustrators awarded him a bronze medal for the drawings he created to illustrate a boxed, collectors’ edition of Dante's Divine Comedy published in 1966. But after years catering to the needs of publishing giants Simon and Schuster, Western Printing, and Avon Press, the artist was spent and looking for a new muse and a new beginning.
Bennett migrated to Oregon in 1986. When a friend brought him out to Astoria he was instantly hooked, and he moved here in 1989. “When I got here, everything became alive again,” Bennett says. “It was flowing like crazy, I couldn’t stop painting.” The move was a significant turning point in his career. His style became even looser, more abstract, and more spontaneous. “When one explodes into expressionistic painting it’s almost like another person comes out,” he says. “I even surprised myself. ”And it wasn’t just the place, which enchanted him, it was also the people. “What makes this area great is the people. Everyone I ran into had a smile,” Bennett says. “Boy did that feel good! I never really got that in Connecticut.”
As the saying goes, you get what you give, and Bennett’s youthful vigor attracted many fans and many believers. Despite his move to a smaller market, when Bennett arrived in Oregon, his paintings sold like hotcakes. Bennett estimates that he’s created hundreds of oil paintings here in Astoria, inspired by the energy of the northwest coast, its people and places. He is particularly entranced by the ever-changing quality of the light here, the moodiness of the weather, and by what he likes to call “water energy.”
After almost twenty years in Astoria, Bennett returned to the East Coast in 2008 to be closer to his extended family. Bennett’s son Thomas is also a nationally recognized painter. The younger Bennett calls Brooklyn home, but also shows his work at RiverSea Gallery.
Large-scale oil paintings of reclining nudes, gorgeous women, and pulsating landscapes have become the focus of Bennett’s work. The structures and figures in his oils bend and sway with a fervent intensity. “I don’t distort people - I distort the painting,” says Bennett. Calling the distortion “the way I feel it,” he says that such emphasis reveals the mystery and excitement he feels about painting and life. Bennett developed his own “black oil” based on a technique use by Peter Paul Rubens in the 16th century. Bennett’s experiments with linseed oil, red lead, and wax were inspired by Rubens’ startling color and skin tones.
Gothic Romance covers: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1101564.html
Mystery/Thriller covers: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1101086.html
Some of Harry Bennett's sketches:
Cover Art for Cry Shame, 1950
Cover Art for Poinciana
Cover Art for The Legend of the Seventh Virgin
Vintage Romance Covers:
Bennett spent much of his early career shuttling back and forth between New York and his home in Connecticut. Bennett's paintings of women had caught the eye of publishing execs, and he quickly became one of the most sought after gothic romance illustrators. "Because I could paint a woman sowell I was never without work," says Bennett.
The covers were works of art, and are collected to this day. As a simple internet search will reveal, even worn gothic paperbacks with Harry Bennett cover art get special notice. Bennett painted them all large, so he could stay loose and fast."I like to bounce off the easel, I can't do that when I'm standing still," he says.
Not all of Bennett's work in those decades was destined for mass market paperbacks. He also caught the attention of the mainstream art world. The New York Society of Illustrators awarded him a bronze medal for the drawings he created to illustrate a boxed, collectors’ edition of Dante's Divine Comedy published in 1966. But after years catering to the needs of publishing giants Simon and Schuster, Western Printing, and Avon Press, the artist was spent and looking for a new muse and a new beginning.
Bennett migrated to Oregon in 1986. When a friend brought him out to Astoria he was instantly hooked, and he moved here in 1989. “When I got here, everything became alive again,” Bennett says. “It was flowing like crazy, I couldn’t stop painting.” The move was a significant turning point in his career. His style became even looser, more abstract, and more spontaneous. “When one explodes into expressionistic painting it’s almost like another person comes out,” he says. “I even surprised myself. ”And it wasn’t just the place, which enchanted him, it was also the people. “What makes this area great is the people. Everyone I ran into had a smile,” Bennett says. “Boy did that feel good! I never really got that in Connecticut.”
As the saying goes, you get what you give, and Bennett’s youthful vigor attracted many fans and many believers. Despite his move to a smaller market, when Bennett arrived in Oregon, his paintings sold like hotcakes. Bennett estimates that he’s created hundreds of oil paintings here in Astoria, inspired by the energy of the northwest coast, its people and places. He is particularly entranced by the ever-changing quality of the light here, the moodiness of the weather, and by what he likes to call “water energy.”
After almost twenty years in Astoria, Bennett returned to the East Coast in 2008 to be closer to his extended family. Bennett’s son Thomas is also a nationally recognized painter. The younger Bennett calls Brooklyn home, but also shows his work at RiverSea Gallery.
Large-scale oil paintings of reclining nudes, gorgeous women, and pulsating landscapes have become the focus of Bennett’s work. The structures and figures in his oils bend and sway with a fervent intensity. “I don’t distort people - I distort the painting,” says Bennett. Calling the distortion “the way I feel it,” he says that such emphasis reveals the mystery and excitement he feels about painting and life. Bennett developed his own “black oil” based on a technique use by Peter Paul Rubens in the 16th century. Bennett’s experiments with linseed oil, red lead, and wax were inspired by Rubens’ startling color and skin tones.
Gothic Romance covers: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1101564.html
Mystery/Thriller covers: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1101086.html
Some of Harry Bennett's sketches:
Cover Art for Cry Shame, 1950
Cover Art for Poinciana
Cover Art for The Legend of the Seventh Virgin
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I particularly liked the way he did his guys -- the harsher, craggier faces have always attracted me more than the smooth pretty-boys. :)
Angie
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