Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 9

  an illustration from Blue Book, August 1942, for a story titled 'Warlock or Woman?'. And an example of Stoops bold sense of color design.

stuff- Earth Hour this Saturday- http://www.earthhour.org/home/

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 8

These are images I got off the internet - so technically, the copyrights to these images belong to the respective owners of the original art.

Stoops is all about impressionism - he's got great draftsmanship, but there's often a minimalist, spontaneous, sketchy look - there's a lot of scratchy noodling, but his compositions have a sense of bold simplicty and strong contrast in design. In his pen and ink work, he uses blacks to great effect - lots of large, areas of shading done with brush - he's all about chiaroscuro - stylistically, he's very comic book-friendly - he has a cartoony quality, and he's dynamic and expressive as well.

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 6

These are from 'The Blue Book Illustrations of Herbert Morton Stoops' by Col. Charles Waterhouse with an intro by Walt Reed published by the Art Directors Company. 

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 5

This is from another Frank Linderman book, 'Pretty-shield' a biography of an Native American woman from 1932 - dig the pen work - this is from the Time-Life 1991 edition - so there's still a few books in print with Stoops illos., which is cool. Time to do an ad hoc biography:

He served in WWI and started his career after that. Like most top illustrators from the Golden Age, he did it all - ads, magazine illustrations, book illustrations, posters, murals, historical paintings,... He was noted for adventure, western, and historical topics - He had a major association with Blue Book, painting over a 100 covers for them from the mid-30's until his death in 1948. He did several propaganda posters for the military during WWII. He also did much work for the American Legion magazine and illustrated several books for adolescents and books about American Indians.

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 4

These are from 'Plenty-Coups, Chief of the Crows' by Frank B. Linderman, this has had several editions - this has tons of great illos. by Stoops - I like the author a lot, as well - and it's really a remarkable biography - a great author being matched with a great illustrator who complements the story wonderfully well - this one makes sense of my world - fortunately, I believe Stoops was the original illustrator on four of Linderman's books, including a children's book - Stumpy the squirrel, a classic in squirrel literature...

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 3

More from the Bible stories book.

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 2

This is from a bible story book he did -  from 1956 - the variety of styles he uses - he can go from his typical rough and rugged look to a very clean, delicate style and various points in between - 

Herbert Morton Stoops Illustrations 1

This is a Listerine ad from the November 1934 issue of the Ladies Home Journal - a dramatic scene showing an emaciated Scottish family on the island of St-Kilda, ruefully awaiting the dreaded supply ship! because it will surely bring an epidemic of ... the common cold... so use Listerine. OK - maybe not the greatest ad concept, but a great subject for a super HM Stoops wash illustration.