Reynold
Brown was born in 1917 in Los Angeles as William Reynold Brown to William
Reynold Brown (a railroad engineer) and his wife Ada (Fairley) Brown. He
drew continuously as a child. He particularly liked telling stories by drawing,
comic book style, for the neighborhood children while sitting on a sidewalk
curb or a porch stairway.
He got a well rounded art education in Alhambra High School in California
under the stewardship of a World War I veteran and artist, Lester Bonar.
His skills won him a scholarship to attend art school after graduation but
due to the death of his father he had to begin working to care for his mother
and two younger sisters.
About 1937, with the help of Bonar, he was able to get a job inking and
then drawing the syndicated comic strip by Hal Forrest, "Tailspin Tommy."
This strip told the story of a barnstorming pilot, Tailspin Tommy. Brown
worked on the strip until 1941.
During high school, Brown came to admire the great illustrators of the age,
such as J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, N.C. Wyeth and especially Norman
Rockwell. Rockwell's sister taught at Brown's high school.
Through Bonar, Brown was able to meet Norman Rockwell. Rockwell advised
Brown that if he wanted to learn illustration he would have to leave the
comic strip and start finding jobs as an illustrator. Brown left, to the
dismay of Forrest.
With the outbreak of World War II, Brown was able to use his aircraft rendering
skills learned from working on Tailspin Tommy to land a job with North American
Aviation in California. At first he did technical illustrations for service
manuals.
He soon devised what were to be called phantom drawings in which aircraft
were drawn with a clear skin so that the internal structure of the aircraft
was visible.
On some of these he collaborated with another artist, Mary Louise Tejeda,
the only woman artist in the department of over forty men. Brown also listened
to the stories of returning aviators and used these stories as the basis
of a number of illustrations which appeared in the technical manuals, advertising,
North American promotional literature and its in house publication, "Skyline."The
phantom drawings also appeared in Popular Aviation and Flying Magazine.
In 1946, at war's end, Brown married Tejeda. They moved to New York so he
could pursue a career in illustration. His illustrations appeared in magazines
such as Boys' Life, Outdoor Life, Popular Science and Argosy. He also did
some of the first paperback or pocketbook illustrations. His work appeared
on the covers of books by Van Tilburg Clark, (The Ox Bow Incident), William
Faulkner (Sanctuary) and Erle (SP) Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason mysteries).
By 1951, Brown had a growing family of three children. He was also still
caring for his mother and sisters. The burdens of caring for two distant
households was too much so Brown, enticed by an offer from North American,
decided to move back to California. He realized he preferred the freedom
of free-lance illustration, and with the encouragement of Tejeda, went back
to it.
Working first in Temple City and later La Verne, he continued to do illustration
work. He also took a teaching position at Art Center College of Design.
There he would teach figure and head drawing for 26 years.
Among his many students were some of today's finest artists including sculptors
Hollis Williford and Richard Mac Donald, painters Gordon Snidow and John
Asaro, and Illustrators Robert Peak and Drew Struzan.
In 1951, while doing a show for Art Center, Brown met Misha Kallis, an Art
Director for Universal Pictures. Brown soon completed his first movie poster
for Universal, The World in His Arms, featuring Gregory Peck and Ann Blyth.
That began a series of over 250 campaigns for Universal, MGM, Disney and
American International Pictures (AIP).
Brown's work was used to promote classics like Ben Hur and Spartacus, westerns
such as The Alamo and Taza, Son of Cochise and drama, horror, monster and
science fiction films. His science fiction works for such pieces as The
Time Machine and This Island Earth, as well as his monsters like The Creature
from the Black Lagoon have already become popular among collectors.
Brown's work featured many important stars including Elizabeth Taylor (Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof), John Wayne and Richard Widmark (The Alamo), Rod Steiger
(Run of the Arrow, Al Capone), James Cagney (Man of a Thousand Faces), James
Stewart (Shenandoah, The Rare Breed) and Fred MacMurray (Gun for a Coward).
While doing the movie posters Brown continued to do other illustration work
for other media including a number of record jacket covers.
In the early seventies, Brown decided to take part in the developing market
for fine art paintings on a western theme. Brown had always liked painting
the west as a subject in his illustrations.
He set aside illustration work, including poster art and concentrated on
western paintings for the fine arts market. Brown's skills well developed
through his many years of illustrating, made his work popular and he sold
about 250 oil paintings. These covered not only the west; they included
portraits, harbor scenes and landscapes. He also sold work in charcoal,
pencil, pastel and watercolor.
Brown suffered a severe stroke in 1976. His left side was completely paralyzed.
With the help of Mary Louise, he was able to retrain himself. Although unable
to do the detailed and highly representational work of his pre-stroke years,
he was none-the-less able to do produce some powerful drawings and beautiful
landscape paintings of Nebraska, where he settled in 1983 and remained until
his death in 1991.
His wife, Mary Louise, always at his side, continues to paint in pastel.
For the website of Franz Brown, son of Reynold Brown, and also an accomplished
artist click
here
Back to his list of posters
released
