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Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Herbert Knotel

Posted on September 13, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Herbert Knotel

Born in 1893 in Berlin, then the capital of old Hohenzollern Prussia and that of Imperial Germany as a whole, Herbert Knotel was the son of renowned uniformologist and military historian Richard Knötel (1857-1914). The elder Knotel pioneered uniform art and in many cases drew from preserved examples whenever possible.

His father’s uniform books are classics that endures to this day as is his massive 1,000-plate Große Uniformkunde, which young Herbert assisted with.

Herbert found himself as a officer in the Prussian Army and, assigned to Hindenburg’s 1st Army was wounded at Tannenburg during WWI. He finished the war as a Hauptmann in a horse cavalry unit on the Eastern Front.

With the world turned upside down in 1919, he returned to Berlin and took up the family business, both expanding and preserving his father’s inherited work and producing original plates of his own while helping run the Berlin Zeughaus Museum.

He was meticulous, first sketching his art, then using watercolors for shading and fill work and finishing with acrylics.

Lancer of Berg by Herbert Knötel (From the Library of Tony Broughton)

Lancer of Berg by R. Knötel for reference (From the Library of Tony Broughton)

When the Soviets occupied Berlin in 1945, Knotel was commissioned to cover the uniforms of that force in an epic 50-plate set, drawing many from officers and enlisted he met from Zhukov’s Red Army. These were later combined with over 100 images of the Tsarist army uniforms to create a single volume.

“The woman, seen on theatricals event in January 1946, probably frontline Artist”

“The commander of the Special Operations Group, who selected the watch for me and my wife”

“The captain of the Polish infantry unit as a part of the Soviet Army – 1945”

(Dig the swim gear on the pioneer)

Knotel died in 1963.

A huge cross-section of his work, including the Soviet set, is maintained online at the Anne S.K.Brown collection.

The modern tome that best covers his (non-Soviet) work is Herbert Knotel’s German Armies in Color: As Illustrated in His Watercolors & Sketches by Andrew Woelflein and Napoleonic uniforms by Col. John Robert Elting.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Bruce Minney

Posted on September 6, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Bruce Minney

West Coast artist Bruce Minney was born October 2, 1928 and in 1946 was accepted to the prestigious California School of Arts and Crafts. However, after graduation work as a firefighter left him unfulfilled artistically so in 1955 he packed up the family and moved to the mecca of advertising, paperback and pulp publishing production– New York City.

Soon he began producing cover and illustration art for a number of men’s magazines ranging from Stag, For Men Only, Male, True Action, Man’s World, New Man and later National Lampoon while also churning out a staggering 400 paperback covers over the next 30 years.

His populist hyperrealist style, while similar to that of Mort Knustler and others, is unique although sadly some of Minney’s work has actually become kinda synonymous with 1960s kitschy kink— but in the end has been embraced and preserved, so put that in your politically correct pipe and smoke it!

Voyage to the Forgotten World, Mens magazine cover

Stag cover, June 1959

Cover for “Voyage to Somewhere” 1970 paperback

Last Man on Luzon

The Boston Medic Who Wrecked Germany’s Slave Colony – For Men Only, May 1961

Homestead steel strike STAG-Dec-1965

MALE – 1960

The Wild Raid Of Gibbon’s Lace Panty Commandos, Mans Book cover

Tonight We Hit The Nazis’ Torture Train 3695, New Man cover

Vile Secrets Of Hitler’s Hideous Torture Rites

The winner of numerous awards and the shaper of men and boys for a generation or better, he died on August 5, 2013.

Extensive collections of his work are online at Mens Pulp Mags and Pulp Covers while (Bruce’s son-in-law) Thomas Ziegler’s Bruce Minney: The Man Who Painted Everything book is about the best source of information there is on the man and his works.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Robert McCall

Posted on August 23, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Robert McCall

Born Robert Theodore McCall on the day before Christmas Eve, 1919 in Columbus, he earned a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School but during WWII did his part in the Army Air Corps, seeing the bombers and fighters of the era up close and personal.

After the war he worked as an advertising illustrator in Chicago and then New York getting by, doing pieces for everything from pulp stories to concrete adverts.

LET IT RAIN! YOU ALWAYS FEEL SO SAFE AND STEADY DRIVING ON NEW-TYPE CONCRETE! Portland Cement Association, 1960

But McCall had a passion and real eye for aviation work, over time donating some 45 paintings to his old service branch, by then the modern U.S. Air Force.

B-24s over Ploesti, Romania, August 1943, ca.1955

By the 1960s he was working for LIFE and others chronicling the space race, then Stanley Kubrick used his work in what is perhaps the best known near-future sci-fi film of all time.

This painting by artist Robert McCall, “Orion Leaving Space Station,” shows a space vehicle darting from the lit bay of a wheel-shaped space station. It was used in a promotional poster for Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 sci-fi classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Credit: Robert McCall/MGM via NASA

This led to direct work for the National Air and Space Museum and NASA, who contracted him for a series of inspring murals located not only in Washington but at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston; the Dryden Flight Research Center in Lancaster, California, and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson.

Robert McCall’s 2003 “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight” mural graces the entrance of NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center’s main building. In it, the famed aerospace artist painted a timeline beginning with the dawn of powered flight, and topped it off with flight’s progress into space. 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Robert McCall’s 1997 mural “Accepting the Challenge of Flight” at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, is focused on portraits of actual Dryden employees. Flight research aircraft of that era fly above, and his ever-optimistic view of the final frontier is in view at the top. 1997 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Title: “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight 1903-2003” Artist: Dr. Robert T. McCall 2003 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 6 feet by 18 feet Commissioned by: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA June 5, 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Handshake in Space 1974. Image via NASA

Shuttles, Stations, and Spacewalkers, 1979. Image via NASA

Aeronautics Icons. This McCall mural at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., showcases a host of experimental aircraft. The large silver craft in the foreground is the HL-10 lifting body, which was used for research which paved the way for the shuttle program. The black X-15 rocket plane streaking to the left at the top center of the mural flew 199 missions from 1959 to 1968, setting speed and altitude records for winged aircraft. Image via NASA

McCall's work, "The Space Mural -- A Cosmic View," can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/multimedia/detail.cfm?id=4435 It is SIX Stories high and is seen by an estimated ten million annually

McCall’s work, “The Space Mural — A Cosmic View,” can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is SIX Stories high and is seen by an estimated ten million annually

Many visitors stop to have their photo taken in front of McCall’s The Space Mural — A Cosmic View when visiting the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. Image Number: WEB11351-2010 Credit: Image by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

McCall produced a number of concept paintings for the 1970 20th Century Fox motion picture Tora! Tora! Tora!, which now hang in the National Air and Space Museum’s World War II Aviation gallery entrance.

On his death in 2010 at age 90, Motherboard called him the Picasso of the Space Age which I feel is something of an insult to McCall. Perhaps the Raphael or Michelangelo of the Space Age would be a better comparison.

The Artist at work. Image via NASA

“I think when we finally are living in space, as people will be doing soon, we’ll recognize a whole new freedom and ease of life,” McCall was quoted as saying. “These space habitats will be more beautiful because we will plan and condition that beauty to suit our needs. I see a future that is very bright.”

NASA has an extensive gallery of McCall’s aerospace work and there is always McCall Studios.com for prints and more information.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Purrfict Martial Art of Alexander Zavaliy

Posted on August 16, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Purrfict Martial Art of Alexander Zavaliy

Born in 27 January 1955 in Vorkuta, a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic (its north of the Arctic Circle and its name means “place teems with bears”), Alexander Zavaliy went to officer school and served in the Red Army, being forward deployed to East Germany and seeing what Afghanistan looks like on the two ruble a day plan.

Leaving the military, he studied art at Kuban State University in Krasnodar then settled in the warm Black Sea town of Gelendzhik near Novorossiysk and took up painting and drawing. In the past twenty years he has cranked out some 500 works as a professional illustrator and recently came up with the idea of portraying Russo-Soviet military history, with a slight twist.

He uses cats as models, but going beyond the feline factor, uses a lot of military authenticity.

Hussar of the Patriotic War of 1812

Tsarist Cossack of the Imperial Konvoy cat with his cavlary shaska on watermelon practise. Note the Austin-Putilov armoured car in the background with its distinctive twin Maxim turrets. Of the 250~ Austins built during WWI, just 33 were Russian made Pulitov models but both kinds were used in against both the Germans and in the famed Armored Car unit in Petrograd during the Revolution, mentioned several times in John Reed's 10 Days That Shook the World.

Tsarist Cossack of the Imperial Konvoy cat with his cavalry shaska on watermelon practice. Note the Austin-Putilov armored car in the background with its distinctive twin Maxim turrets. Of the 250~ Austins built during WWI, just 33 were Russian made Pulitov models but both kinds were used in against both the Germans and in the famed Armored Car unit in Petrograd during the Revolution, mentioned several times in John Reed’s 10 Days That Shook the World.

White Russian army officer cat complete with Tsarist cap insignia and shoulder boards. Note all four orders of the Cross of the Knights of St. George across his blouse and the British Mark V series tank behind him– 60 of these beasts were used by the Whites in the Ukraine with British assistance and went on to become the first Soviet tanks.

Black Sea Soviet Naval Infantry, WWII. Note the Maxim machinegun belt, and captured Mauser bayonet

Minesweeper. Dig the M91 Mosin on his back and the E-tool sticking up over the bedrool

Hero sniper inspecting his Mosin rifle, note the Note German Shepherd looking out through the ruins of the Theater Building in Stalingrad

Which leads to the inevitable surrender of cat versions of Friedrich Paulus, General-Feldmarshal (left) and his aides Col. Wilhelm Adam (right) and Lt.-Gen. Arthur Schmidt (middle)

ADN-ZB/TASS II. Weltkrieg 1939-45 Schlacht um Stalingrad vom Juli 1942 bis Februar 1943 Der kriegsgefangene Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus (l.), bisher Oberbefehlshaber der faschistischen 6. Armee in Stalingrad, trifft am 31.1.1943 mit seinem Stabschef, Generalleutnant Arthur Schmidt (m.), und seinen Adjutanten, Oberst Wilhelm Adam, beim Stab der sowjetischen 64. Armee in Beketowka ein. Aufnahme Lipskerow

For reference: ADN-ZB/TASS II. Weltkrieg 1939-45 Schlacht um Stalingrad vom Juli 1942 bis Februar 1943 Der kriegsgefangene Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus (l.), bisher Oberbefehlshaber der faschistischen 6. Armee in Stalingrad, trifft am 31.1.1943 mit seinem Stabschef, Generalleutnant Arthur Schmidt (m.), und seinen Adjutanten, Oberst Wilhelm Adam, beim Stab der sowjetischen 64. Armee in Beketowka ein.
Aufnahme Lipskerow

Russian cats in the German army– note the Schmisser and the dog collar gorget on the German Feldgendarmerie

A very happy frontovik with his accordian

A very happy frontovik with his accordion

Scout with his PPSH-- complete with tally marks on the buttstock. Very similar to http://laststandonzombieisland.com/2015/07/25/15350/ the Portrait of Soviet Guards Sgt. Alexey G. Frolchenko

Scout with his PPSH– complete with tally marks on the buttstock. Very similar to the Portrait of Soviet Guards Sgt. Alexey G. Frolchenko

Surrender of a Tiger tank. The SS Doberman and Wehrmacht German Shepherd make it

Surrender of a Tiger tank. The SS Doberman doesnt look like he is going to make it, but the Wehrmacht German Shepherd just may. Note the late war PPS-43 and quilted winter uniform

A very Marshal Zhukov-like comrade cat at his desk. Note the 100 dog kills medal and the coffee glass filled with cream

And of course, a glorious Red Army airborne forces paratrooper with his AK-74

And of course, a glorious Red Army VDV airborne forces paratrooper with his AK-74 and Guards telnyashka striped shirt

Of course Zavaliy also has a body of more serious work as well.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Richard Jack

Posted on August 2, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Richard Jack

Richard Jack, though born in Sunderland, England, in 1866, was Canada’s first official war artist.

In the late 19th Century he studied at a number of esteemed art schools including the York School of Art, the South Kensington Art School, the ARA, the Royal College of Art and the Académie Julian— almost all on academic scholarships for his submitted work.

Returning to London from the Julian, he became first a black and white illustrator for Cassells and other periodicals then switched to painting, winning silver medals for his work before the Great War.

The Passing of the Chieftain by Richard Jack, York Museums Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Pushing 50 when Word War I began and not having a military background, he still did his part and took to sketching soldiers passing through.

The Return to the Front Victoria Railway Station, by Richard Jack, 1916, via the York Museums, on display in Lincolnshire. Trust Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

These were subsequently published and brought him the attention of the Canadian governor general’s office, who extended an offer in 1916 to commission Jack as the official war artist to cover Canadian exploits in the war to end all wars.

Heading to the Western Front as a Major, Canadian Forces, Jack took to his work in covering the heroic stand by the Canadians at Second Ypres for posterity. Unlike the British government commissions, which encouraged a modernist approach to war, the Canadians wanted Jack to produce recognizable ‘history’ paintings as realistic as possible– and he did, controversially including bodies of the broken and dying.

Though, naturally, not actually present at the fighting, Major Jack had carefully investigated and sketched the whole ground, and has spent some time with the units which took part in the engagement, collecting from officers and men all the details and facts needed for absolute accuracy. Some of the men who had been through the battle actually posed for the picture, whilst machine-guns and all manner of military accoutrements were temporarily placed at the artist’s disposal, whose studio assumed something of the appearance of a battlefield.

This time spent on the continent yielded two massive works, The 12-foot-by-20-foot canvases of The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915, and The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday, 1917.

The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915

Official war artist Major Richard Jack poses by his painting. ‘The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915’ depicting Canadian soldiers making a stand against a German assault He painted this enormous work of art, with the canvas measuring 371.5 x 589.0cm (12 x 20 foot), in his London studio, c.1917. Commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund (CWMF), an organization established by Lord Beaverbrook to document Canada’s war effort. Sir Edmund Walker, who sat on the advisory board to the CWMF, felt that Jack captured the achievements of the Canadians during the battle, but felt the work would not resonate with Canadians, who, he felt, were “not likely to appreciate such realistic treatment of war.” He was wrong and Jack’s painting remains an iconic work from the First World War. (National Archives of Canada PA 4879)

The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday 1917. The painting is a part of the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art at the Canadian War Art Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.

After the war, Jack, a civilian again, emigrated to Canada (why not, right?) and settled in the Montreal area. Jack became a renowned portrait artist, brushing depictions of royalty, statesmen and senior officers.

Lieutenant Colonel L. Robson, CMG, DSO by Richard Jack, currently part of the collection of the Hartlepool Museums and Heritage Service. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Lieutenant Colonel Lancelot Robson, CMG, DSO by Richard Jack, currently part of the collection of the Hartlepool Museums and Heritage Service. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Robinson was commander of the Royal Artillery who responded to the raid on Hartlepool, commanding three BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns mounted ashore against Hipper’s squadron

Muriel Elsie, née Hirst, (1895–1969), Lady Gamage painted 1950 by Richard Jack via St Johns Museum. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Muriel Gamage was a prominent worker for public causes, and had served during WWI with the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), organizing the military hospitals during the war, and was appointed D.J.ST.J.(Dame of Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem), in recognition of her service, whose badge appears on her uniform

Jack was later inducted to Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Painters before his death in 1952, aged 86.

He spent the latter part of his life paining landscapes in his adopted country.

Richard Jack landscape, from the York Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

You can find an in-depth study of his works here and the BBC has a collection of some 45 of his works online

His style of battle scenes has drawn much modern imitation.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Walter Baumhofer

Posted on July 26, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Walter Baumhofer

Walter Martin Baumhofer “The King of Pulp” was born in Brooklyn in 1904 to working class German immigrants. At the age of 14, while playing with a supposedly dud artillery shell brought back from the Great War, he blew off three fingers of his left hand, effectively ending the world of manual labor open to First Generation American lads in New York City in the early 1900s. Graduating high school he garnered a scholarship to the Pratt Institute for Art and by 1921 was selling his first art, for an American Legion publication.

By 1926 he was good enough that he was selling pulp fiction covers for Westerns and adventure novels and mens’s magazines that were being churned out in New York by the truckload.

Adventure March 1935

Seen this guy somewhere else….

Liberty, Hell in the Holy Land (1936) Baumhofer

While he did covers for Spider, American magazine, Gangland Stories, Dime Mystery, Danger Trail, Western Story and Adventure, it was his work on Doc Savage “80 Page Novels!” that made him famous, to include his iconic Red Skull character illustrations.

Dr. Clark Savage Jr, the forerunner of Indiana Jones, appeared in 1933 with Baumhofer pulling all of the artwork load.

First issue of Doc Savage, March 1933. Hitler just took power, so you needed the good Doctor.

Savage was “The Man of Bronze”

Hail Hydra….

The Doc will fight you with mittens on if he has too.

Does it get any more Indiana Jones?

Its not pulp unless you have underwater action

By the late 1930s he was cranking out regular work for Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, McCalls, Redbook and Woman’s Day and after the war moved to Argosy, Outdoor Life and True and switched to selective oil on canvas gallery work late in his career.

“Police are your friends”Walter Baumhofer

While he produced over 600 covers in his five decades of active work, few were true martial works. However, it should be remembered that thousands of Joes and Marines headed off to Europe and the Pacific with a beaten Doc Savage stuffed in their duffel, which in a way helped win the war.

He died in New York September 23, 1987 peacefully at age 83.

There are numerous galleries that highlight the portfolio of Mr. Baumhofer as well as more extensive biographies.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Tom W. Freeman

Posted on July 19, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Tom W. Freeman

Born in 1952 in Pontiac, Michigan, Tom’s family moved to the East Coast when he was 12. At age 18, Freeman joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1970 and left the military during the post-Vietnam draw down in 1977.

Although not professionally trained as an artist, Tom was skilled and had an eye for naval subjects, visiting the offices of the U.S. Naval Institute and pitching artwork that went on to grace the cover of the USNI’s journal, Proceedings (I’ve had a subscription since 9th grade NJROTC and encourage you to do the same!)

In all, he did the covers for 9 issues of Proceedings and 22 issues of Naval History magazine. He became the first artist in residence to the United States Naval Institute.

Freeman’s first cover, Feb. 1977, Proceedings.

He went on to become widely accepted and painted portraits for the White House, National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Annapolis, the SECNAV’s office, the Naval Historical Command, CNET, the NROTC program, and others as well as publish extensively.

Yamato’s Final Voyage

USS Tennessee

USS Houston, CA 30 valiantly fights on alone during the night of February 27-28, 1942 against an overwhelming Japanese Naval Force. “They Sold Their Lives Dearly” by Tom Freeman.

USCG Hamilton, (WMSL-753) interdicts drug runners by tom freeman

Pioneers

Pawn Takes Castle during Battle of Midway by Tom Freeman (Akagi means red castle)

Oil on canvas by the artist Tom Freeman entitled The Harder (SS-257) Rescues Ensign John Gavlin. Date is 1 April 1944. Image via Navsource

Too Close

Action in the Slot PT-109

IJN Soryu (Blue Dragon) by Tom Freeman

French helicopter carrier Jeanne d’Arc

(16 June 2003) Award-winning artist Tom W. Freeman presents his painting “Payment in Iron” to the Honorable Hansford T. Johnson, Acting Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV). The artwork will hang in the main entrance to the Acting SECNAV’s office. U.S. Navy photo by Journalist 1st Class Craig P. Strawser.

He delved extensively into Civil War maritime history, a subject that is often left uncovered.

You Can Run, CSS Alabama chases down Yankee clipper.

The Fatal Chase by Tom Freeman. The USS Hatteras engages the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. Hatteras was sunk in the ensuing battle

“Gunfight on the Roanoke,” The gun crew of the U.S.S. Miami witnesses the sinking to the U.S.S. Southfield by the C.S.S. Albemarle, April 19, 1864. Via TomFreemanArt.com

CSS Fredericksburg at Trent’s Reach – Tom Freeman

Freeman’s magnum opus was a series of 42 paintings and a mural covering the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 for the USS Arizona Museum, who display them prominently in their collection, seen by millions.

Attack on the Tang

Nakajima B5N2 attack bomber taking off from aircraft carrier Akagi, 7 December 1941. Artwork by Tom Freeman.

The Last Mooring

Fuchida’s planes cross the coast, by Tom Freeman.

Sadly, Mr. Freeman crossed the bar last month on June 18 at age 62. Freeman is survived by his wife Ann, five children and 13 grandchildren.

Artist Tom Freeman at Pearl Harbor

His official website, Tom Freeman Art.com is up and running and I encourage you visit it.

‘A Guest of the King’ USS Enterprise arrives in Bahrain for a port call. Tom Freeman

This month’s Proceedings has a salute to Freeman included and is repeated on their website and they note that his “Guest of the King” might well be the only American painting gracing the palace of King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday: We have the Mort, Part VI

Posted on July 12, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : We have the Mort, Part VI

As you are probably aware, I am a huge pulp art and military art fan. One of the best there ever was in the business is the famous Mort Kunstler (official site) — America’s Artist.

In the past I’ve posted several of the Master’s works in the pulp art category from the 1950-60s and have found enough (new to me) ones to make a sixth extensive post. As always with this blog, “click to big up” and feel free to save for posterity.

Without further “adoo”…bring on the Mort!

MORT KÜNSTLER (American b. 1931). The Lost Tribe of Komodo, Stag cover, July, 1965

MORT KÜNSTLER (American b. 1931). Shark Attack, Adrift for 43 Days, Male magazine front cover, April 1968

Does it get any better than this?

STAG, June 1964, artwork by Mort Kunstler

Swamp Girl, Male magazine cover, May 1969 mort

Navy Team of Land Crab Commandos that Pulled Off WWII’s Boldest Kidnap Raid mort

They Raced to Freedom mort

Seal Off the Nazis at Antwerp Harbor, Stag magazine, True Book Bonus story illustration, April 1964 mort

ADVENTURE, June 1957. Cover by Mort Kunstler via weasles ripped

As always, thank you for your work, sir!

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Alphonse de Neuville

Posted on June 21, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Alphonse de Neuville

Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville was born in 1835 at Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais and, growing up on the coast, entered naval school at age 21. However, he always had an eye for the pencil and the brush and by 1860 was completing military-themed paintings and sketches that soon became widely received.

He illustrated several books including one that was very far-reaching for its time.

Although submersible were more fiction than fact at the time, de Neuville was able to combine his nautical background with his art to craft haunting illustrations of life under the ocean in a modern attack submarine in 1870 for the Hetzel editions of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The 111 drawings in that work (!) by de Neuville even today harken to adventure, naval warfare, and sci-fi from the true steampunk era.

Nautilus engines

In 1871, France was defeated (handily) by the Prussians and that lost war provided de Neuville steady work in immortalizing the lost armies and battles of that conflict.

Le cimetière de Saint-Privat, le 18 août 1870.

Défense de la porte de Longboyau, 21 octobre 1870

"Uhlan et cuirassier de la brigade Von Bredow, morts, " Showing a Dead Prussian Uhlan and Cuirassier, Franco-Prussian war. On exhibit at the Musée des Invalides, Paris.

“Uhlan et cuirassier de la brigade Von Bredow, morts, ” Showing a Dead Prussian Uhlan and Cuirassier, Franco-Prussian war. “Von Bredow’s Death Ride” in which some 800~ Prussian horsemen charged the French lines with surprising results was one of the last effective use of Napoleonic-style cavalry in modern warfare. On exhibit at the Musée des Invalides, Paris.

Bataille de Champigny (1870). Note the dead Prussian officer in the foreground, sword in hand

Alphonse de Neuville – The Attack at Dawn

Alphonse de Neuville – In the Trenches. Note the broken rifle. The desperation. You feel the cold of that 1870 winter.

Perhaps his most famous painting of this war was Les dernières cartouches (The Last Cartridges) which immortalize the stand by a group of French Marines of the Blue Division at Bazeilles on 31 August and 1 September 1870 during the Battle of Sedan.

“The Last Cartridges” by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville note zouave and shattered rifle

“The Last Cartridges” by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville note the Tunisian Zouave and shattered rifle

That imagery became famous in France and has been both widely imitated and reproduced in the past century and change.

One of the few Georges Méliès films (he made more than 500) that remains in existence is based on the painting and was created in 1897.

Alphonse de Neuville also did an extensive study of the French army uniforms of the era, which serve as a reference and a window into that era to this day.

Sergent of the 9th

Dragoons, mounted

Sapper

French Cuirassiers

Dragons – Alphonse de Neuville

A French Military Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville

A French Combat Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville. Note the detail on the Chassepot 1866 Needle rifle and how the officer in charge of the detail has his eyes glued on the engineer standing sentry with a cigarette in his hand and not on the work party. In the below sketch, that background detail is different

A French Military Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville pencil

A French Military Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville in pencil– and with the officer minding the work and not the smoker

Our artist also tried his hands at other conflicts of the era.

Alphonse de Neuville – The defence of Rorke’s Drift 1879

Neuville died in Paris on May 18, 1885 at the untimely age of 49. His work is widely exhibited.

The artist

Thank you for your work, sir.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Rafael DeSoto

Posted on June 7, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Rafael DeSoto

Born Rafael Maria de Soto y Hernandez on February 18, 1904 in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, the young man grew up drawing. In the early 1920s his family sent him to live with an uncle in New York’s Lower East Side and he soon found work in advertising without formal art training.

By 1930, DeSoto, eschewing a seminary appointment, was working for the pulp magazine clearing house of Street & Smith’s which he augmented by churning out pulp novel covers. Over the next two decades he produced works for dozens of pulps to include Ace, All Detective, Black Book Detective, Phantom Detective, The Spider, Ten Detective Aces, Terror Tales, Thrilling Detective, Western Aces, and Western Trails.

Rafael DeSoto

Whats better than a hardhat diver and a box of gold coins? A hardhat diver with a box of gold coins and a .38– that’s what

GI Joe Cover by Rafael DeSoto

Is that a 1911 in your hand or are you just happy to see me?

Black Mask, September 1944; cover art by Rafael DeSoto

Settling in Queens, the artist was found 4F in World War II, which left him out of uniform but he nonetheless rose to the occasion and often produced very detailed military art.

Rafael DeSoto

True Adventures cover, Dec 1963 by Rafael DeSoto

Rafael DeSoto

This is my favorite work of his. The Garand is great

Battle Cry cover by Rafael DeSoto. Click to very much big up

Those cheeky guerrillas…great detail on the MP by the way

Making a dive for that Browning!

Go ahead and find a more determined Navy gunner than this one…

By the 50s he was producing mainly book covers for Bantam, Dell, Lion, Signet, and Pocket Books and retired at age 60 to teach at State University of New York (SUNY), Farmingdale for a decade.

Book cover by Rafael DeSoto

He died on Christmas Eve 1992 on Long Island at age 88.

His works will be signed invariably with as Raphael De Soto, Rafael M de Soto, and R de Soto. There is an excellent bio of him at Pulp Artists as well as a number of galleries an official website and his son’s site, who incidentally is an incredible artist in his own right.

Thank you for your work, sir.

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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