Clarence Coles Phillips (1880 - 1927)

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Jerimee Richir [send private message]

Biography

Clarence Coles Phillips (1880 - 1927): American magazine illustrator, famous for his "fade-away girl" technique. He died of tuberculosis in 1927.^[1]

Research Notes

Pete Beard Bio

In 1904, at the age of 24, Clarence Cole Phillips left his hometown in Ohio for New York. There, he attended night classes in drawing and painting for a few months, despite this being his only former artistic training. His work was good enough to secure him a studio job in advertising for a couple of years before he set up as a freelance illustrator in 1907. Soon after, he was commissioned to produce a series of monochrome illustrations for Life magazine. Their success led to Phillips being invited to produce a color illustration for the cover, which was published in 1908. In the illustration, Phillips made creative and daring use of negative space, inviting the viewer to see shapes not actually drawn. What quickly became known, rather inaccurately, as the "fadeaway," was such a success that he supplied another 50 over the next four years, and the technique became his virtual trademark. The popularity of his life covers led to commission from other prestigious magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Vogue. He should be credited with being one of a very small number who introduced a more modernistic graphic sensibility into American representational illustration in addition to his magazine work he was also commissioned for a lot of lucrative advertising in the form of posters and press-ons and it looked like Phillips was headed for a long and illustrious career but in 1924 he was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease and just to add insult to injury rapidly failing eyesight and only three years later at the age of 47 it was all over for Coles

Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #66112973
2. ↑ Clarence Coles Phillips on Pete Beard's Unsung Heroes of Illustration 6
   

See Also:

• Wikidata: Item Q5144661
• Clarence Coles Phillips on Pete Beard's Unsung Heroes of Illustration 6
  
• Unsung Illustrators