I was drawn to Frank Frazetta because of the fantastical images he created. Fantasy artwork isn’t a subject for art that I have seen much. I like the fact that his work has a sort of comic book style and yet it is still very unique. It is obvious that Frazetta has stylized his figures, however, they still appear natural to me. I appreciate the action and anticipation in his art and the fantastical elements give it another level of interest. When Frazetta’s art career really started taking off, the books which he had illustrated the covers for would do very well commercially because as one woman said, she wanted to read about the scene that was illustrated on the cover. I think it is really cool to be able to make art that would cause such intrigue that people would want to know more about it and that is why I wanted to study Frazetta; that is also probably why his art was highly sought after for book covers and album covers.
Frazetta was something of a child prodigy. He was enrolled into the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts when he was only eight years old, making him the youngest student there. He studied under the esteemed artist, Michele Falanga who was very impressed with Frazetta, so much so that he aspired to send the young artist to study in Europe, unfortunately, he died before he was able to. The Academy shut down and Frazetta had to find work. At 16 years old, he was doing comic book art. He worked alongside Al Capp who had such a major influence on him and his style that when he tried to go his own way, he had trouble figuring out a way of drawing that was different than what Capp did. Eventually, Frazetta shifted work from comic art to magazine and movie poster art as well as illustrations for adventure novels. During this time, Frazetta’s work was doing tremendously. His work was admired by Hollywood stars and he began to be pursued by animation studios for his talent, however, Frazetta turned down most of these opportunities in order to maintain his own creative freedom. His influence on the world around him came from his dedication to what he liked and what he knew he was capable of. He stayed true to himself, at one point working on an animated movie, but quickly he returned to traditional media where he was able to make anything he wanted, even without being commissioned and it would sell as a cover for a book or album for thousands of dollars.
Frank Frazetta inspires me to not sacrifice what I like doing and what I know I’m good at for a sweet-sounding opportunity. As a teenager, Frazetta got an offer from Disney, but he turned it down because it wasn’t his path. Still, while he refused to sacrifice what he loved, he still was able to cater to what people would respond to, such as the fact that he spent a lot of time drawing Santa’s and bunnies during the Holidays. He took advice from the people around him who wanted to pour into him as well and even was able to appreciate the work from artists he couldn’t get along with. Frazetta easily and readily absorbed information and that inspires me too. He once was told by Ralph Mayo to study anatomy, so he took the book he gave him and copied all the drawings in it from cover to cover in one night. Promptly the next day, he returned the book and said, “Thank you very much, I just learned my anatomy.” This especially inspires me because he was able to surprise his teacher by being very literal with his advice. Also, the fact that he was excited enough to follow his teacher’s advice to copy an entire anatomy book in one night baffles me as much as I’m sure it baffled Ralph Mayo.
http://frankfrazetta.net/Bio.html
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/fantasy/Frank-Frazetta.html