Reflecting on the work of Joe Bowler

Not many artists have it both ways. As an illustrator, the pictures by Joe Bowler (b.1928) graced the covers of major magazines and national ad campaigns. As a fine artist, Joe Bowler is widely recognized for his premier portraits. He enjoys rock star-like success in both the commercial and fine art arenas. A hard driving artist, Bowler has a unique ability that quite simply touches people’s lives. We find it difficult to critically explain Mr. Bowler’s techniques and painting style without first trying to understand his background. Therefore, discussing the influential work of Mr. Bowler must necessarily include an examination his life experience as an illustrator and fine artist.

Biography of Joe Bowler

Joe Bowler has had a long and storied career, climbing to the top in both the illustration and fine art worlds. He wanted to be a professional artist from a very early age. As a student, he won numerous awards and praise for his artwork. Bowler was also adept at math and science. His parents weren’t keen on his idea of a future in art until his high school had a career day. There, he was given a list of possible careers and what each one paid. According to the list, illustrators were considered the top money-makers, earning $100,000 a year. This figure easily surpassed current day salaries of doctors and university professors. Though Mr. Bowler felt this amount was just a bit inflated, even in the golden age of illustration, he noted that many artists were making a very nice living plying their trade. Bowler figured the people who compiled the career list based the illustrator’s salary on that of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) who was a huge star at the time. This information encouraged Bowler’s father to change his thinking. He decided a career in illustration might be worth a try. Bowler’s father helped get his son an apprenticeship at a small illustration studio in New York City. At the same time, Bowler studied at the Art Students League under Frank Reilly (1906-1967), Robert Hale (1901-1985), and Howard Trafton (1897-1964). His initial experience led to another apprenticeship, and eventually a job as errand boy at Charles E. Cooper Studio, of New York City. The Cooper studio was the country’s top firm for illustration at the time. Working there were dozens of famous illustrators. Bowler’s duties included matting and delivering artwork and cleaning up after the 70 staff artists. He got first-hand knowledge of the process in which ideas were developed, reference was shot, and paint was handled. Many of the illustrators shared their expertise with him. Bowler was eager to learn, and spent his off hours working on pictures of his own. Famous illustrator, Coby Whitmore (1913-1988) noticed these paintings while Bowler was matting one of his pictures. Whitmore told Bowler he would like to show his painting to the editors when he delivered his finished assignment to Cosmopolitan magazine. Whitmore came back later that day and told Bowler to send Cosmopolitan an invoice for $1,000. Bowler, who was making $35.00 a week at the time, was thrilled. This sale began his illustration career at age 19 in 1948. Bowler never looked back. Within six months he had work in five major magazines. As a result of this first opportunity in the illustration world, Whitmore became Bowler’s mentor and close friend.
In 1958, in the midst of great success, Bowler was struck down by polio. The disease left him almost completely paralyzed. He persevered with self-determination and intense physical therapy. From a wheelchair, he painted a cover for The Saturday Evening Post just a few months after his diagnosis. The period of recovery lasted over seven years and gave Bowler a chance to reflect on the techniques of the old masters and traditional painting methods.
His success as an illustrator continued into the 1960’s. It was during that time that he noticed that many of his assignments involved portraiture type illustrations for the major magazines. He painted many people of note, among them, the Kennedys, the Eisenhowers, and Charles de Gaulle. He created several series of fashionable portraits, including one on the Presidential candidate’s wives. For the December 1965 issue, Bowler pitched an idea to McCall’s magazine. It involved a series of sketches entitled The Fine Art of Little Girl’s Fashion. The magazine bought the idea and gave him an eight page spread in the Christmas issue. The series of pictures received a very positive response. Because of this, he received inquiries from all over the United States and Canada for portraits.
This positive response presented a vast opportunity to Bowler. In the late 1960’s, Bowler made the transition from successful illustrator to one of the countries most admired portrait artists.
A lifetime of creating innovative, emotional artwork is not Bowler’s only accomplishment. His clients and peers recognized him with prestigious awards. Bowler was elected into the Society of Illustrators in 1952. The Artist’s Guild of New York named him their Artist of the Year in 1967. The Society of Illustrators inducted Bowler into the Illustrator’s Hall of Fame in 1992.

Technique

Bowler started his career painting in gouache. Many of his assignments involved portraying beautiful women in editorial and advertising illustrations. Working in gouache, Bowler would arrange complex scenes, rich in color, pattern and form. The work in his early years was often employed flat shapes, dynamically composed. Perhaps this was influenced by the prints of the Japanese or the work of fellow Cooper studio illustrators. Bowler boldly used color and value to draw the viewer directly to the main subject, most often a hot babe. Harkening back to the work of Coles Phillips (1880-1927), he sometimes used the fade away device, a magazine cover favorite.

His illustration work was romantic, skillfully combining figures, shapes and patterns into narrative pictures that made the viewer want to read the story or buy the product. Much of his early work had a graphic quality, but it all was based on a good, solid drawing.

During the 1950’s, abstract expressionism was the popular trend in the fine art world. Bowler’s good friend and fellow illustrator, Murray Tinkelman (b.1933) encouraged all of the artists at the Charles E. Cooper studio to take a class offered by abstract painter, Reuben Tam (1916-1991). A brilliant teacher, Tam was an abstract landscape painter. He was also known as an artist who interpreted the moods of nature. Tam used this ability to teach students how to interpret their ideas abstractly. Wanting to be on the cutting edge, Bowler attempted this approach. He discovered that although he made pleasant abstract designs, he needed to continue with his representational style.


At this point, Bowler realized that in order for it to be great, a painting must convey an emotion. The viewer shouldn’t have to think about it, the emotion should simply be present. He believes the abstract art movement got too intellectual, with critics directing the trends of the artists and collectors.
Good draftsmanship is another attribute Bowler believes to be essential:
“The ability to draw well is one of the most basic tools that every artist needs. Art students must learn to draw; it matters even if they go on to work in abstraction. Drawing is everything.”


Value is important in Bowlers’ approach to composition. He believes in simplicity when composing a picture, developing the composition and the relationships of value first, before getting into any detail.
Bowler calls himself a temperature painter. His sensitivity to warm and cool colors in skin tones and shadows sets his work apart from others. Bowler relies on a solid knowledge of the color wheel and mixing the color temperatures from cool to warm. He believes this approach creates the illusion of volume:
“By using this color theory, I obtain vibrations of color that excite the eye.”
Bowler composes the colors on his palette in a way that moves from cool to warm then back to cool again. When applying color, he is always considering temperature as well. When creating darker values, he rarely adds black to the pigment. Instead he uses colors that are complimentary in a way that creates rich darks.
Bowler believes that painting is a process of building and destroying. He feels that when an artist understands how to draw and move paint around a canvas, it is ok to get in there and paint assertively. Nothing is too precious. An artist can use a big brush, try various approaches, and take chances. If something doesn’t work, a good draftsman can wipe off the unsuccessful area and redo it.
This approach allows Bowler to keep his pictures from getting too tight and confined. His brush strokes convey a confidence and freedom that take the viewer straight to the subject and emotion of the picture. When one watches Mr. Bowler work, they can’t help but notice the ease at which he paints. He makes it look easy.
Bowler’s illustration background has greatly influenced his career in portraiture. At Charles E. Cooper studio, he learned how to pose a model, create a setting, light a scene and plan a composition within predetermined dimensions. This knowledge led him to paint great illustrations at the time, and later set his portraits apart from the work of others. Bowler believes his illustration background makes his fine art more inventive than standard portraits. An example of this can be found in Bowler’s portrait painting, Impatiens. He places the focal point, the lovely faces of two little girls, in the golden section of the image area. Through the use of modeled brush strokes, he leads the viewer up from the bottom of the picture, across the dappled sunlight on the ground to the children, quietly engrossed in examining a flower. He draws attention to the faces of the children by using the warm colors and setting them against a much darker background. Professional illustrators commonly use these techniques.
Of Impatiens, client Hollis C. Kennedy writes:
“Your marvelous painting is…
Exquisite but simple
Sparkling but soft
Relaxing yet compelling
Active yet quiet
Impressionistic but detailed
Personal but universal
Colorful but muted
Forceful but unostentatious.”
Portrait clients seek Bowler out when they are looking for something more interesting than a standard portrait. When Bowler presents sketches to a client, he typically offers one or two ideas that are standard and one or two that are more narrative. In the narrative sketches, he tries to capture the personality and emotion of the subject. More often than not, these are the sketches that are selected.

Bowler became more painterly in his later years, employing broad brush strokes and fewer lines. His masterful use of temperature, brush strokes, composition, and value all work together in a visually pleasing manner. These elements combine successfully to set whatever emotion is needed. The term fine art bothers Bowler. He feels that it presupposes that fine art is superior to illustration, and that it should be taken more seriously. Bowler believes that the two are separate from each other and neither is better. However, both illustration and fine art rely on the same principles of design and craftsmanship.
Bowler’s pictures demonstrate his vast knowledge of what works best on the printed page. At the same time, they also show his keen command of the techniques and working styles of the old masters. In the art world, Bowler truly is a renaissance man. The appeal of his work spans the commercial and fine art markets. It will be relevant for generations to come.