James Gordon Irving

Gordon Irving cover paintings for Golden Guides published between 1949 and 1955.

James Gordon Irving (2 June 1913 – 15 August 2012) was an commercial illustrator and painter, best known for illustrating the early Golden Guide series of nature books.

Biography

Irving, who went by the name Gordon, was born in 1913 in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey.[1] Interested in natural-history illustration from an early age, he took art classes at the Dean Academy in Franklin, Massachusetts, and from the age of 17 at the Grand Central School of Art and the National Academy of Design in New York City.[1] He served in the US Navy at a naval base in San Francisco during WWII,[2] where he met his wife-to-be, Grace Crowe, moving back to New Jersey in 1947 to raise a family.[1]

Irving worked as a commercial artist for many years, but is best known as the illustrator of the Golden Guides, pocket-size introductions to natural history for children; he illustrated the first, Birds (1949) by Herbert Zim & Ira Gabrielson, and eight more during the first years of the series: Insects (1951), Stars (1951), Trees (1952), Reptiles and Amphibians (1952), Fishes (1955), Mammals (1955), Zoology (1958), and Gamebirds (1961).[1][3] When the series was relaunched in 2001, several of the books continued to feature Irving's paintings.

Gordon Irving died aged 99 on Wednesday August 15, 2012, at Haworth, New Jersey, survived by his two sons.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Fandrich, Leslie (Fall 2012). "The Golden Nature of James Gordon Irving". Uppercase (15): 46–50.
  2. 1 2 "James Irving Obituary". The Record. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  3. ↑ "Golden Guide Checklist". www.vintagepbks.com. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, January 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.