Influential Illustrators 1960-1970 Robert K.

Influential Illustrators 1960-1970

Robert K. Abbett was a true mid-westerner, and was born in the heart of Indiana. He studied art in the Midwest at Purdue and Missouri University. There, the vast beauty of the Midwest heavily influenced his artistic expression seen in both his gallery and illustrative work. After his time studying in school, he moved to the east coast where he worked in illustration in major cities like Chicago and New York until 1970. There, Abbett spent a great deal of time designing countless book covers and print campaigns for a wide variety of professional and conservation organizations, afterwards he focused his attention on strictly producing gallery art and now specializes in outdoor works. His dog portraits have now set the standard for commissioned works of selected breeds (see Image A).

As an outdoorsman, Abbett had a great tie to the natural world. He was very active within many different conservation organizations that focused on protecting the natural environment and the various species within it. He has worked with the National Cutting Horse Association, The Sporting Dog Heritage, The Bird Dog Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, The National Wild Turkey Federation, and the International Quail Foundation, (Fink 2009). This devotion towards spreading the message of conservation has fashioned Abbett's influence into a strong force when the world began to regain an environmental conscious, as seen in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Phillip Harrison Hays (1931-2005)

With over twenty-five under his belt as both an active illustrator and teacher, Phillip Harrison Hays has strongly influenced the minds and work of a multitude of modern artists. His career took off early on, and very early he "established his reputation for dramatic and dark imagery at an early age, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, McCalls, Esquire, and also on album art covers," (Society of Illustrators 2008). During the decade between 1960-1970, Hays' work was all over representations of popular American culture. He had also produced amazing illustrations of great Rock, Jazz, and Blues singers, which had a dark twist according to his stylistic expression (see Image B). Hays began teaching in the late 1950s at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Towards the end of the 1970s he relocated to California where he served as Chairman of the Illustration Program at the Art Center College in Pasadena.