The Ship Model Forum

Many of us have likely a bit or two of two-dimensional art at home. Who's your fave artist / piece?

Almost 2 decades ago, 'was thrilled to land a Robert Taylor print of, "Hornblower And The Atropos," wherein recently-posted Captain Horatio Hornblower is being taken to his new command in a small boat. The 22-gun sloop is anchored on the Thames, with masts erected and yards crossed.

'Still love it!

Good question, but to be honest I never paid much attention to who did the artwork. I just admired the art and wondered why my ship didn't look like that when finished.

cadman wrote:Good question, but to be honest I never paid much attention to who did the artwork. I just admired the art and wondered why my ship didn't look like that when finished.

JACKPOT! same for me!

'Remember those Revell ship kits with the art done by John Steel? In the book, "Remembering Revell Kits," the author states some of those covers were knocked out within a couple of DAYS.

Commercial artists are sometimes, okay, usually, really, really overlooked as far as truly talented artists!

My favorite marine artists:

Charles Dixon
Willy Stower
Klaus Bergen
Henry Reuterdahl
Geoff Hunt

If you Google them, you'll come up with some nice images!

Ken Marschall from Hindenburg, Lost liners and Bismarck

Lars

I have a couple Robert Taylor prints: Battle of Trafalgar (seven ships of the line engaged) and Spitfire (China Tea clipper).

I wanted a lot more of them, but ran out of wall space and money.

In one, Edgar Hodges, his ships at sea are great, saw 2 new ones last week.

Ted in DC wrote: ...Geoff Hunt...

The contraints in designing book covers (particularly for the Aubrey/Maturin novels) has led to some wonderful works by this painter.

His cover for the Ionian Mission is one of my all-time favourite sea paintings.

Andy

It has to be Geoff Hunt, my favourite painting of his is the bookcover illustration from the book, The Guns off Cape Ann by Kennith Pullman.

I have never seen this painting for sale, only the pencil drawing in Geoff's book.

Even at an early age when I started build those Aurora, Revell, Airfix and Lindberg ship models, I never once failed to realize that the crap inside the box never matched the artwork outside. Understandably, the models are all gone but, I still have all of the beautiful boxart. Although I can look it up, I don't remember any of these artists, they kept my small purchases from being a total loss. Thankfully, the nightmarish memories of those kits have gone as well

As far as marine artists (boxtop or not) go nowadays, it'll be difficult to top Joseph Reindler, Mike Donegan and those Tamiya guys. Maybe the boxtop artists should have final say on what they're advertising. Of course I understand why that isn't so.

My favourite marine artists:

first equals:

Robert Taylor
Geoff Hunt, PRSMA
Claus Bergen
Ivan Aivazozskii (apparently he painted entirely from memory... wow)
Will L Wyllie
Winslow Homer (the sea, rather than strictly military, but still marine)
Kenneth Grant (simply stunning - a friend of mine has a great collection of his originals)

And the others who stand out:

Charles Turner
Ian Marschal
Anthony Saunders
Keith Snow
Harley Crossley
Mike Donegan

Just off the top of my head... there are many more.

As for my favourite individual pieces:

(In no particular order)

Claus Bergen's Prinz Eugen engaging HMS Hood and Prince of Wales, May 24th 1941.

Claus Bergen's Commander

Kenneth Grant's HMS Guierre and USS Constitution dueling (his later version with correct tacks and sail reef points )

Robert Taylor's Bismarck, May 24th 1941

Robert Taylor's HMS Ark Royal Swordfish strike launch

Geoff Hunt's Nelsonian and Patrick O'Brien paintings... all of them See, what I just can't get over, is how he can paint so vividly, as if he was there, shaking out sails from the main ta'gallant of one of Jervis's third raters, seeing the things he saw and capturing them on canvas... when in fact he was not... To me, the level of imagination required for this is just something else. It phases me.

Again, there are probably more. I just happen to be writing in a stale state of mind, again.

And Monty thank you for your support... I hope that one day, with some luck I might actually live up to your compliment; see, I am only at the beginning of my time as a marine painter, and all of the aforementioned artists will completely blow me out of the water right now.

Cheers,

Joseph

JSJH wrote:Many of us have likely a bit or two of two-dimensional art at home. Who's your fave artist / piece?

Almost 2 decades ago, 'was thrilled to land a Robert Taylor print of, "Hornblower And The Atropos," wherein recently-posted Captain Horatio Hornblower is being taken to his new command in a small boat. The 22-gun sloop is anchored on the Thames, with masts erected and yards crossed.

'Still love it!
:surfer:

geoff hunt (seaflower)
tom freeman (the final bomb)
ken marschall (he does all the wreck prints for ballard's books)
kieth ferris (china clipper taking off from hong kong) hey it floats
montague dawson (crescent moon)

I love Tamiya's box art but I don't know who painted them.

This is a shamful plug for my father's set-up, but there are prints on show which are worth looking at- if nothing else.

http://www.maritimeprints.com


Max

We have a painting of HMS Eskimo by Montague Dawson hanging on the wall in one of the conference rooms at work. Every time I see it I get fantasies about how wonderful it would look on the wall in my living room...

Ian Marshall

http://www.amazon.com/Armored-Ships-Set ... 908&sr=1-3

That's a tough one but I'd have to say Norman Wilkinson, Everett Longley Warner, Gerome Brush and Phillip Little. I'm pretty sure you won't find their coolest work online.

Edger Hodges and Ted Walker . Both I can call friends but two of the finest marine artists alive today.
Dave Wooley

Arne Zuidhoek.