Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

Artwork of the Day: One Spring

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

by Karl Bodek and Kurt Conrad Low

Usually, I let the work speak for itself but I do want to explain why I picked this picture for today, Yom HaShoah.  This simple drawing was a collaboration between two artists.  In 1941, both Karl Bodek and Kurt Conrad Low were being in the Gurs Internment Camp in Southern France.   This was the view they had: a butterfly sitting on barbed wire with the Spanish mountains in the background.  Kurt Conrad Low managed to escape to Switzerland.  Karl Bodek died at Auschwitz.

Never forget.  Never again.

Artist Profile: Al Brule (1917 — 2001)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

California-born Al Brule was a born artist, working as a painter by the age of 12 and having his first showing when he was just 14.  After studying at the University of California, Chouinard Art Institute, Otis Art Institute and California College of Arts and Craft, Brule spent two years working at Disney and Warner Brothers.  In 1941, Brule left California for New York City, where he both studied and taught at the Art Career School.  It was while in New York that Brule did his best known work, painting paperback covers and doing calendar pin-up work.  Eventually retiring from commercial illustration, Brule moved to Main in 1964 and pursued a notable career in fine art painting.

(The majority of this information came from the biography posted at the web site of the Chase-Jellison Homestead, which maintains a collection of Brule’s artwork.)

Here is just a small sampling of Al Brule’s work:

Artist Profile: Hunter Barker (1918–2010)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Hunter Barker is one of those artists who I wish I could tell you more about but I couldn’t find much information about him online.  Here’s what it said over at AskArt.com:

“Born in Canada in 1918, Hunter Barker studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, the Darlington Art College, Durham, England and the London School of Arts and Crafts, London.  Mr. Barker studied and worked with many famous artists throughout his career including Robert Loughheed, Charles Seliger, John Clymer, A. Shore Packer, and Charles Kingham.  He spent many years illustrating for national magazines, paperback book publishers and NBC Television in New York.”

I was also able to find a small memorial site for him, that indicated that Barker died in Florida in the year 2010.

Sometimes, after I do one of these artist profiles, a family member or a former colleague will leave a comment and let us know more about the artist.  Maybe that will happen in this case.

Below is a sampling of Barker’s work.  He was active in the 1950s.  While working on this post, I came across many covers that looked like they could have been done by Barker but I have only included work that has definitely been credited as being his: