Among the healthy portrait output of Chilean illustrator and filmmaker Alvaro Tapia reside a neat series of literary portraits. From Poe to Rushdie these captivating portraits remind me a bit of the work of Ralph Steadman Enjoy! Alvaro Tapia's website
Portraits by Fernando Vicente
Mary Illustrator Fernando Vincente is back with a new series of author portraits. You might remember Vincente from a previous project featured on Book Patrol; his striking illustrations for a new edition of the Communist Manifesto.OscarEdgarEmilyCharles BaudelaireArthur RimbaudThanks for all the help in placing the last image - and for correcting me for misidentifying Baudelaire. He was originally called Ralph (Emerson).
Famous Authors Drawn, Not Quartered
Martin Droeshout's 1623 Engraving Of William Shakespeare.The purpose of any portrait is to capture the essence of the subject. To somehow convey in a single image not just the outward appearance of the sitter, but his soul. But if the subject is a great writer, does that task become impossible? Poet Ben Jonson thought so, and maybe the curators at Princeton University's Firestone Library do, too.Those curators have just opened a new exhibit of 100 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, marble sculptures, and plaster death masks, depicting literary giants. The title of the gallery show is: The Author's Portrait. But the...