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Inspiration From Artists Wk 184 Featuring Artists: Zdenek Burian and Steven Scholes .

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Welcome to this weeks thread , the featuring artists this week are : Zdenek Burian and Steven Scholes. Lew will open the week with his introduction to Zdenek Burian and on Wednesday I will introduce Steven Scholes . Have a good week , keep safe and enjoy your art .

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by Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Lewis Cooper

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ZDENEK BURIAN, CZECH PAINTER, BOOK ARTIST, AND NOTED PALAEOARTIST.  1905 to 1981. Here's an artist I'm sure many of you will be familiar with...the work, at least, if not the name.  I'm not going into a lot of bio details, if you are interested there's masses of it online. Zdenek was a gifted artist from his earliest years, this earned him a place at the Academy of Arts in Prague.  It was a three year course, but he left after 2 years to begin a career in illustration.  He was very successful and hugely popular in his own country.  Mainly he illustrated books.  Many by Czech authors, but also a whole range of books by Internationally known authors like Jules Verne, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling and Daniel Defoe.  The first book he illustrated was Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped in 1921. Here are a few of his illustrations... In 1937 he illustrated an adventure story by a Czech author.  It  was called 'The Mammoth Hunters'.  This work got the attention of Josef Augusta a noted Czech paleontologist.  They began to work together on a series of six large illustrated volumes on prehistory.  The first was published in 1956, it became an international best-seller, and Zdenek's art became known worldwide. The artist studied all available info on his subject.  Effectively he was making sense of a bag of bones.  He was also keen to get the environments the animals lived in correct.  Whilst not the only artist working in this genre, he gained huge respect for his work. I can recall seeing these books back then, and found them impressive.  It was the reconstructions of early man that appealed to me most. For me at least, this artist's work is very familiar, it's everywhere, even now.  Sometimes it's easy to overlook the skill, artistry and imagination that went into this work.  I think he was a brilliant artist.
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Marjorie Firth

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I agree, his art is brilliant, very impressive. I’ve probably come across them, must have, but wouldn’t have known his name. All of the above great examples.
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Thank you for sharing this artists work with us Lew , they have a familiar look and I’m sure I’ve seen some before in old books of which I’m a great fan. I will take a look on line at some more of his work and select some I particularly like and will post them .  I found so many that I like , here are  just a few ,  I loved comics as a youngster and westerns were a favourite, of course most people will remember Tarzan stories. The last of my choice is one I don’t know anything about but love the artwork.

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by Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Lewis Cooper

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I doubt you can find out much about the last image.  This artist illustrated around 500 books, only about  2 dozen were about prehistory.  It's the prehistory art that made his name worldwide.  For example his Czech audience liked westerns, as we do, they reprinted famous international authors, but some Czech writers wrote cowboy novels. What has always fascinated me about prehistoric man is that they made art.  They lead tough lives, they were hunter/gatherers, so their prime concern was food and shelter.  It's thought they moved often following the herds they preyed on.  They also made tools, hunting weapons, and crafted their own clothing.  All this is necessary, but why did they make time for art?  This artist has depicted this a few times... Some scientists believed they had religion and the art was connected with that.  Different experts think they made art simply because they wanted beautiful things.  I guess we'll never know for sure. He paints the sea so well... A few more animal pics...
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Lewis Cooper

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A few more. Zdenek was an extremely prolific artist, fully illustrating 500 books, he provided the cover art for another 600 books, and a similar number of illustrations for short stories.  For his prehistory work he used mainly oils, for the reminder he used mostly pen, watercolour and gouache.  Although his prehistoric art gained him worldwide respect it represented a relatively small proportion of his output.  His work in this field influenced many future artists. Thank you Marjorie and Paul. I'm going to  end here.  There's no interest.

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Marjorie Firth

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Lewis, if I don’t comment much it’s because I’m painting, not necessarily because I’m not interested. Then there’s the dusting and polishing the silver of course……😁
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Lewis Cooper

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Of course, I completely forgot about the silver.  You can’t get the staff for that these days.  Anyway…you HAVE commented.  I know people have other things to do and assumed I’d picked an artist that hasn’t aroused much interest.   

Tessa Gwynne

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Lew I used to love cowboys and injuns when I was a kid, and the comics that went with them. I’ve been at my daughter’s since Sunday so only glanced at this til now. You are right about prehistoric men finding time to produce art - quite fascinating but a hopeful sign that they possessed the desire to do so, and the ability with what limited tools they had. I’m going to look him up now. Found these of interest. I like his figure work.

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by Tessa Gwynne

Alan Bickley

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I’ve looked at the original post and the other contributions to it several times, something different and I’ve also found it interesting. I didn’t feel that I had anything further of interest to offer so I didn’t comment… but I appreciated studying the fabulous illustrations - wonderful figure drawings in particular.
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Lewis Cooper

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Sorry folks.  When you do these and get little feedback, you can convince yourself nobody is reading it.  Well I can anyway.  In the past the forums told you how many had viewed the thread.  These days we don’t have that, so it’s easy to think you are talking to yourself. Apologies.  If I do another these, I’ll keep going regardless.
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Russell Edwards

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Instant dose of nostalgia looking at these Lewis. I'm certainly familiar with the Westerns and Airman type of illustration from my school days.  'Never judge a book by its cover' but an exciting illustration on the dust jacket always worked for me.
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