EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 30 © 2020 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

30 Text continued from page 27 ABOVE: Cougar’s Revenge , gouache on board. Interior illustration in Male , December 1965. Künstler did study animals carefully, to depict them as accurately as possible. One of his influences was artist and friend Bob Kuhn. FACING PAGE: Night of the Grizzlies , gouache on board. Interior illustration in For Men Only , March 1970. If one bear attacking a man proved a successful seller, imagine two bears at once. Somehow, Künstler became an in-demand artist for any image dealing with men fighting wild furry animals. the name of Frank Laverty who was in business with his son Jeff, and the two of them were salespeople [working] mainly for advertising, and that changed my career very dramatically. It wasn’t me personally, it was them. And they went and brought advertising art, calendars, illustra‐ tions, historical subject matter that I was suited for, and that led to my finally going to art galleries in New York. You switched over to oils for your gallery work. Yes, that was the standard for work shown at art galleries. Did you have any previous experience with oil painting? Oh yes, at Pratt we always painted with oils. There’s not much difference, really, between gouache and oils, aside of gouache drying faster. In fact, some of my paintings at the galleries were done in gouache, and maybe you didn’t even notice it. Certainly all my work in advertising was done in gouache. It was easier for example to paint small