FINDING PERSONALITY IN A BRICK

### Here is a series of splendid drawings with two things in common:

First, they are all drawings of geometric shapes: buildings comprised of straight lines, flat parallel surfaces and right angles.

Second, despite the fact that each drawing started out as essentially a mechanical drawing, at some key point the artist turned away from the unforgiving laws of perspective, the T square and the triangle, and instead injected the drawing full of character and personality.

The brilliant Bernie Fuchs sketched these buildings in the slums of San Juan. Fuchs seems to have a god-given talent for finding the design in any situation, including this row of squat, ramshackle buildings.



When Rodin drew the massive facade of this building, the shape that interested him the most was not the stone blocks or the massive pillars, but rather the shadow in the doorway. The shadow is insubstantial compared to the weight of the stone structure around it, but it dominates this picture, and enabled Rodin to make a nice, modernistic design.


Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly was a superb draftsman whose understanding of weight, volume and perspective gave his cartoons of buildings and heavy industrial vehicles great credibility. In this typically marvelous example, the geometric shapes of the house have as much humanity as a human face.

In each of these drawings, the artist had to begin with a foundation of traditional knowledge and technical drawing skills, even if those rules were quickly abandoned. Each drawings turned out wonderfully opinionated-- the artists were able to imbue a stone block with character, and portray a brick with personality. But their opinions are far more believable because the artist had mastered how to draw the mechanically correct version.

###

ALEXANDER LEYDENFROST (1888-1961)

###

Suppose that you were a baron, born of noble blood, but you lost your rank and title after the heir to the throne was murdered. Then let's say your country declared war on its neighbor but lost the war after a long bloody battle and as a result, your country was dissolved and the economy collapsed so you lost your family money. Then to make the story interesting, how about if we say that the communists took over but were kicked out in another war. And let's suppose further that you and your good friends, movie actors Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre, decided to flee the country but before you could leave, you were severely injured in a sword fight over the honor of a woman so that you were unable to get around or perform conventional work when you arrived in your new land.

With that type of background, what kind of job would you possibly be qualified to perform?

Obviously, an illustrator.

Sandor Leidenfrost was a baron in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. His family's title dated back to the 16th century. In the tradition of nobility everywhere, Baron Leidenfrost studied fencing and fought duels and lived off his family money. But he also studied the arts and became a master of perspective. (It's always good to have something to fall back on, even when you are a baron).

After the unpleasent events described above, Leidenfrost changed his name and emigrated to New York City. Because of his wounds from the duel, he could not walk around and apply for a normal job but he drew and painted a portfolio of artwork that Lugosi and Lorre shopped around for him. On the strength of that portfolio, they obtained enough assignments to support the whole group. After Leydenfrost recovered, Lugosi and Lorre left for Hollywood and stardom, while Leydenfrost prospered as an illustrator. He specialized in dramatic pictures of aircraft and spaceships; during World War II he painted a famous series of 35 illustrations of warplanes for Esquire magazine.











He also worked for magazines such as Life and Colliers. He was well known his detailed and meticulous drawings with charcoal and watercolor.



The moral of the story is that when some pain-in-the-ass illustrator starts putting on airs and acting like he is royalty, be careful-- he just may be. ###