Making Magic with Murray

designer
The Official Publication of the University & College Designers Association / Vol. 32, No. 2
Making Magic with Murray
An Interview with the Illustrious
Illustrator, Murray Tinkelman
INSPIRATION
Recently at New Jersey City University (NJCU)
we were afforded the rare privilege of hosting a
remarkable illustration show called The Artist and
the Baseball Card curated by Illustration legend
Murray Tinkelman. NJCU illustration faculty
member, and illustrator of the baseball card Catfish
Hunter, Dennis Dittrich introduced his long time
friend, professor, and mentor by saying: “When
someone reaches a point—and very few people
do—but when someone reaches a point in their
field where they are absolutely peerless—where
whatever that person does cannot be duplicated,
imitated, or replicated—they can go by one name.
Prince. MacGyver. Santa.
And in illustration circles it’s Murray. Go to any
illustration department, in just about any art school
or university in the country, and you say: “Did
you work with Murray?” Nobody says: “Murray
who?”. (Nobody says: “Santa who?”) It’s just that
everybody knows who he is. That’s the impact he
has had on the education of American illustrators.
Into every life a little Murray Tinkelman should fall.”
Photograph by Ella Rue
To that end, my hope is to mete out a little Murray.
To share a little bit of his wit, his wisdom, and his
illustrious experiences, to dazzle you with his talents,
some of his personal anecdotes, and his memories. I
was afforded the singular honor to be a part of the
organization and planning of this show at NJCU,
and to that end was granted an opportunity to
see, first hand, his studio, replete with his massive
collection of Mets memorabilia, amazing artwork,
and prized possessions, in addition to speaking to
him, at length, about his professional history, his
exceptional experiences, and his thoughts on the
education of the illustrators of tomorrow. But before
I expound on his experiences I would like to share a
little bit of my own.
I am a designer. I am not an illustrator. I understand
the principles of design and I use those principles
in my everyday work. I am even comfortable in the
role of teaching those very same principles. I have
my degree in studio art with an emphasis in graphic
design, and therefore was taught an overview of
visual arts with a broad brush stroke, and although
I can draw, and I can paint, I honed my skills in the
area of design. I am fully confident in my ability
to recognize fine art and I can distinguish the
difference between the marvelous and mediocre.
I am in utter awe of fine artists; of those who
can brush their instruments of choice across their
canvas with grace, ease, and agility and can visually
articulate something both magnificent and
meaningful. Murray is unparalleled. His
detail to perspective, his intent to work to
the very best of his ability, his eye for
fine minutia is staggering. His work
is stunning, and his gifted mastery
is only made more profound
by his commanding ability to
communicate.
Above: Murray
Tinkelman with NJCU
illustration faculty
member Dennis
Dittrich and Ella Rue.
Below: Mac Baldrige,
Team Roper
Murray is kind and generous
and welcoming. He’s gracious
and eager to share his
knowledge and
experiences. He
welcomes
questions,
aking Magic with Murray:
An Interview with the Illustrious
Illustrator, Murray Tinkelman
by Ella Rue
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and encourages
interaction, and doesn’t
leave one feeling like
the lesser person for
simply asking. He and
his wife, Carol, made
me feel completely
comfortable and
entirely welcome
in their amazingly
adorned home.
Above: Murray in
his studio
Below: Book cover
illustrations, 1978-81
Murray Tinkelman
has won gold medals
from the Society of
Illustrators, the New
York Art Directors
Club, and the Society
of Publication
Designers. He’s been
commissioned to
create art by both the
National Parks Service
and the United States
Air Force. In 1999
Murray was named the
recipient of the Distinguished Educator of the Arts
Award from the Society of Illustrators in New York.
He received the 1995 Sports Artist of the Year from
The United States Sports Academy, the 1970 Artist
of the Year from the Graphic Arts Guild in New
York City, and the 2001 Syracuse University Service
Citation, where he taught in the undergraduate
program, as well as coordinating, teaching, and
advising in the master’s program for 27 years. He
is now the director of the new M.F.A. program at
the Hartford Art School, located in the University of
Hartford, in Hartford, Connecticut.
His illustrations have appeared in a variety of
publications such as Atlantic Monthly, The New
York Times, and The Washington Post. He has had
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a one-man exhibit of his baseball art at The National
Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown,
New York, in 1994 and The United States Sports
Academy in Daphne, Alabama, in 1995. His work
is represented in the permanent collections of the
Brooklyn Museum, the Delaware Art Museum, the
International Photography Hall of Fame & Museum,
and the New Britain Museum of American Art.
Murray also offers a variety of lectures: “The History
of American Illustration,” “Tinkelman: Fifty Years
in Ninety Minutes,” ”Art & Accident,” “The Artist
and the Baseball Card,” and “Future Stars” given
at colleges, universities, and museums throughout
the country. His lectures offer a delicious first-hand
account with anecdotal knowledge of the world of
illustration with his lighthearted wit and infectious
enthusiasm peppered throughout. Murray is a living
part of American illustration history.
Rue: Was illustration your first career path?
Tinkelman: Actually it was my only career path.
There was nothing in the world other than making
pictures that I could do, well that and to talk about
making pictures. There were no other options. I
sold ice cream on the beach for Good Humor ice
cream for half a day and I worked in a doll factory
for about a week. But that’s it. Other then that,
illustration is all I’ve ever done.
Rue: What talents do you wish you possessed?
Tinkelman: When I started my career in illustration
I only had three problems: I couldn’t draw, I
couldn’t paint, and I was color blind. I sold my first
illustration in 1951 to Seventeen magazine and it
absolutely proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
that I couldn’t draw, couldn’t paint, and that I was
color blind. But I was happy with what I got. I kind
of taught myself to draw and I taught myself to act
like an illustrator. I’m still color blind, though.
Rue: Where do you turn for inspiration?
Tinkelman: Actually the first part of my career
I turned to every artist and every illustrator who
was published. I had many favorite illustrators
individually, in other words not all at the same time.
There was a time when I loved Milton Glaser, I still
do, but I was certainly heavily influenced by him at
one time. There was a time when I was influenced
by Lorraine Fox; she is a marvelous decorative
illustrator. I was the second best Lorraine Fox in
New York City! She was certainly an inspiration.
There were many other illustrators that I would
salivate after, just wishing I could do what they did,
and in some cases I took the trouble to learn to do
what they did and I did it. Now I turn inward for
inspiration. I kind of try to relive my prepubescent
male fantasies. My subject matter is drawn from
that: baseball, cowboys and Indians, motorcycles,
stuff about horror movies, stuff that kids like and
identify with... that’s what I do know. I’m less
interested in “Art” than I am interested in subject
matter. I draw well enough now to make the
subject matter that I’m interested in visible. Nobody
questions what it is ... whether it is a face, a hand,
or a tree.
Rue: What is the biggest obstacle for creativity?
Tinkelman: I talk to my classes about that.
Everybody has heard about fear of failure. “I don’t
want to try this... because what if I fail?” But
there is nothing really more insidious than a fear
of success. You do something, you “succeed” at
something, and by God you have to do it again and
again and again, and maybe for the rest of your
life or at least the rest of your creative life, and I
think some people are afraid of commitment...the
commitment to excellence that must be upheld. I
think that may interfere with them doing their best.
Rue: Did you have a mentor?
Tinkelman: Yes, I had several. I was lucky enough
to be represented by a great, great, great studio.
It was an advertising art and illustration studio.
It had about 45 artists under one roof. Some of
those artists were Coby Whitmore, Joe DeMers,
Joe Bowler, Lorraine Fox. These are all people who
have been inducted subsequently into the Society of
Illustrators Hall of Fame. These were and are great
illustrators! Incredible artists! And they adopted
me, when I entered the studio, when I was 20
years old, I found it very difficult to make a living
that first year. They were enormously supportive.
Their wives were helpful to my wife, and they
were my mentors. I did have a great teacher, and
his name was Ruben Tan. He was kind of a semiabstract painter. I had a scholarship at the Brooklyn
Museum, a painting scholarship. So I studied with
him for a year. The most brilliant man that I have
ever met and although he is not an illustrator, he
introduced me to the fundamentals of art that are
archetypes: they apply to illustration,
painting, and photography—to all the
visual arts. I guess Ruben was a great
teacher/mentor.
Rue: Should or even could art
be used as an instrument for
positive changes?
Below (left to right):
The Babe; Casey
Stengel; and The Inner
City, The New York
Daily News Sunday
Magazine, 1976
Tinkelman: Yes, I guess it could.
For example, the artists during
the turn of last century who
did all of the glorious paintings
and illustrations of the ecology
of Yellowstone Park, which
led to the National Parks
Program. I think the Norman
Rockwell painting of the
young black girl being led
by the U.S. Marshals, the title
of that was “The Trouble We
All Live With,” undoubtedly
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Above: Oil and the
Third World, The New
York Times Op-Ed Page,
1973
Below: Ecology
(detail), The New
York Times Op-Ed
Page, 1972
had some rather
conservative people
sit up and take notice
because it was Rockwell
who was the darling of
the conservative right,
despite that he was
actually very liberal as
a person. Maybe that
did some good. But
Picasso’s “Guernica,”
which was an anti-war
painting about the
fascists bombing of the
town: I don’t know
what it did, if anything,
to change people’s minds. People looked at it when
it used to be here at the Museum of Modern Art and
say: “Wow. What a powerful painting,” but I’m not
so sure if it was instrumental for positive change.
On the other hand, what about art being used
for negative change. The German filmmaker Leni
Riefenstahl directed the “The Triumph of Will,” a
kind of a Nazi propaganda. There was that kind of
wacky, yet marvelous art deco looking stuff done by
artists working for Stalin on the left and Hitler on the
right, that had sort of a deco, schmaltzy propaganda
air. I don’t really know how much effect that had.
And of course we had our own propaganda posters
during WWI and WWII; I guess our high point would
have been WWII. Things like the “Four Freedoms,”
again done by Rockwell... I guess that had some
positive results. I think photojournalists have made
positive change. There are a couple photos during
the Vietnam War that certainly did as much to end
that war as anything, certainly more than all of the
talking and bullshitting did; the photograph of the
street execution taken by Eddie Adams, the young
girl running toward the viewers burned by napalm
taken by Nick Ut, the anguished woman over a
prostrate body at Kent State taken by John Filo. All
of these are some great civil rights photographs. I
think more powerful than any painting or illustration
and more meaningful to a positive result. I have had
running arguments with great friends and intelligent
people who feel that illustration is a very strong
powerful propaganda tool. And it is, I guess it can
be, to a degree but I don’t think it is anywhere near
as powerful as photography. If we could have a
shoot-out in a contest: I’ll pick ten photographs and
you could pick any ten illustrations you want. Then
show them to a bunch of civilians, and by civilians I
mean anybody that is not an illustrator. And let’s see
what the vote will be, which are the most powerful,
most stirring, the most meaningful. Yes, I think if we
count photography, art can definitely be used for a
positive change.
Rue: If you could change one thing about art
education in America what would it be?
Tinkelman: That’s a question near and dear to my
heart. People get preoccupied or enchanted with
new technology, which is fine. But you can’t forget
that there’s something primal about capturing an
image by hand by taking something and drawing
something and representing it on a two dimensional
surface that is simply purely magic. I think that
schools are being swayed by technology. I’m not
saying to ignore technology, by all means keep it
up; but when I hear that Pratt is eliminating figure
drawing from the curriculum to make room for
another computer class, than the boundaries have
reached. Now we are simply not talking sense
anymore, it’s simply insane. You got some nitwit
bureaucrat listening to some other nitwit saying
‘illustration is dead’. Well illustration has changed.
The market is nowhere near as visible as it was when
I entered in 1951. It’s certainly spreading out. But
there are areas that exist now, markets for illustration
that never existed before, such as fresh animation
markets, the graphic novel, children’s books seem
to be growing as well. There is a ton of illustration
being done; it is just not as readily visible to the
general public.
Rue: Do you think artists will hold a different place
in our culture in the future?
Tinkelman: No, I think it will be the same. We are
shamans, we are magicians, we are court jesters, we
are a luxury, in many ways we are a luxury. Nobody
wakes up in the middle of the night and yells out
“ARTIST!, I need an artist!” They yell out “I need a
plumber” or “I need a doctor.” I think artists hold
a unique place in all societies and we are looked
askance by some, with jealousy, and to others we are
magicians and performers, and oh boy is that great.
The idea is for any artist to enjoy it, to realize what a
unique position we have: to play it, and enjoy it. But
you also have to shut up and make pictures.
Rue: Can you explain to me how drawing is magic?
Tinkelman: The story is second hand but I will
re-tell it as I remember it. Marshall Arisman, who
is a wonderful educator, illustrator, and painter, is
also a really nice person. He tells this story about
drawing. He once said that he was unhappy with
his own ability to draw so he took a year off just to
teach himself. He was telling the story about going
out to lunch with Dora Mathew and how she was a
wonderful, brilliant fashion illustrator. She drew like
an angel and spoke like a longshoreman. She had
this deep raspy, whisky cigarettes voice. Every other
word was a curse word, and she was marvelous,
simply marvelous. One day she invited Marshall to
go to lunch with her to a fancy French restaurant
and Marshall was feeling nervous because he didn’t
have enough money to pay for the meal. And she
said, “Don’t worry about it, kid,” in her deep whisky
voice. At the end of the meal she calls the head
waiter over and said: ”Sit down! I want ’chew to
pose for me. I want to do a drahwing.” And she
does a beautiful portrait of him and the guy is so
taken that he won’t let her pay the check ... they got
their meal for free. Marshall heaves a sigh of relief....
Dora leans over to Marshall and says to him “Kid,
nevah fahget that drahwing is magic!”
Rue: Do you have a parting shot?
Above: UCDA honorary
member Murray
Tinkelman presenting
at the UCDA Annual
Design Conference in
October 1979.
Below (left to right):
Black Canyon National
Monument, 1970;
Beastie, 1970
Tinkelman: Other than shut up and draw no, not
really. I had such an abundance of good luck at that:
being at the right place at the right time. Meeting
so many great people to work with, like working
with the great Herb Lubalin, one of the greatest art
director/designers I think ever in the history of visual
communications. Working with people like Herb and
many others who allowed me to do what it was that
I wanted to do at the time. I have just been luckier
then I had any right to be, certainly luckier than I had
any right to expect.
All images reproduced
by kind permission
of the artist
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