Drawing Versus Illustration, A Community Reacts

I am in the process of starting a gallery. That’s right: a real, physical space on a street in the city that I have come to adore: Oakland, California. (Point of fact: I will be curating the side gallery at The Compound Gallery on San Pablo Ave.) This has been a long time coming and that last bit of the vision is proving to be the most arduous. My little exhibition space will be focused on a particular kind of art…drawing…or is it illustration? I have to get this right in my head before going further. As usual, when faced with an aesthetic quandry of such ancient and dynamic proportions, I to turn to the community. Fortunately, my community is made up of some of the most talented and inspiring visual artists I know of. I am not really concerned with definitions of Drawing versus Illustration as I am with the perception of the two modes of art making. Enjoy the following musings and stay tuned for updates about the new space.

(click on each image below to enlarge.)

Drawing is for the soul

Illustration is for the wallet

-Dave Higgins (http://www.dwhiggins.com)

photo courtesy Dave Higgins

Drawings (which can still be visual depictions of a story) transcend in some way. And they transcend through form! It is the form of the drawing which needs to move beyond the story, it becomes more than the story, referencing other things, or conjuring a multitude of, deeper, or other emotions, ideas, issues, feelings etc.

It is all based on form, isn’t that what all this shit is about?

-Derek Weisberg (http://www.derekweisberg.com)

photo courtesy Derek Weisberg

Illustrations are works of art that are made with the intention of being reproduced. If a drawing is made to reprinted in a magazine, it is an illustration. It is still a drawing. A drawing for the sake of the image or expression or whatever is not an illustration, regardless of the style it is done in. So I guess it is, technically, a matter of intention.

Things get complicated when somebody, like me, starts referring to certain styles of fine art that is made to be seen directly in a gallery setting as “illustration”. This is a misnomer and really just me being too lazy to really think up a proper phrasing for the type of artwork that technically is drawing (or painting) and technically is not going to be reprinted, but is within the visual genre of what I consider illustration art. A great example of this would be an artist like, say, Shag or Tim Biskup. Having seen their work first reprinted in magazines and books, then in person, it is clear that their art looks better reprinted. So I refer to them as illustrators and their artwork as “illustration-painting”. These are both painters, rather than “draw-ers”, though.

-Pete Glover (http://www.peteglover.com)

job or joy
you pick

-Nathaniel Parsons (http://www.ihavebeento.com)

photo by Obi Kaufmann

I would like to propose that illustration is a school of drawing, like Grafitti might be. What if something like “Urban Illustration” meant a conveyed meaning…like an ad with nothing to sell. Drawing is what happens before and under a painting.

-Obi Kaufmann (http://www.obikaufmann.com)

In my mind the term “illustrations” refers to drawing work done to spec. An “illustrator” is paid to produce a drawing that meets certain specifications. Whereas “drawing” refers to the act of making lines and marks, usually on paper. This act can be done purely for the pleasure or doing it and is not necessarily constricted to any specifications other than those that the artist imposed upon themselves. So I guess my definition is that when referring to illustration, business first, art second. When talking about drawing, it’s art first, then business second (maybe).

-John Casey (http://www.bunnywax.com)

photo by Obi Kaufmann

I usually emphasize that the main difference is that: conventionally the end result for illustration is that it looks good in reproduction for whatever print publication/book/product it will serve. Anything can be an illustration.

This is versus drawings which are intended as fine art – which are essentially created out concerns for perhaps a process-oriented focus, an observation, or a personal or aesthetic investigation by the artist.

-Narangkar Glover (http://www.narangkar.com)

above photo courtesy Narangkar Glover

As for the academic difference between illustration and drawing: illustration implies there is a visualization of a pre-existing idea or theme, often in context of a pay-for-the-result situation. Drawing, in my opinion, exists as an end in itself, where the idea, process and result are often created by the artist in what could be called a free state of mind, often without direct compensation, and possibly without associative constraints. The best illustration shows the viewer exactly what the concept is, while drawing often just shows us to ourselves…

-Steven Barich (http://www.stevenbarich.com)

photo courtesy Steven Barich

I would agree that Illustration has a commercial drive and was defined as commercial art before the split of Graphic Design and Illustration. I would also agree that presently it would almost define a broad style.

-Marcos Lafarga (http://www.marcoslafarga.com)

PART I – My Actual Opinion
Illustration and Drawing are two different categories and can’t compared in a straightforward way.
“Drawing” includes “Illustration.”
Drawing is a universal human activity. Illustration is something you might want to do with your drawing skills.
It’s like comparing “playing music” and “playing rock.” One compares rock and jazz, not music and rock, or music and jazz.

PART II – Other Peoples’s Opinions, With Rebuttals
There is no enduring stylistic difference between ‘fine art’ drawing and ‘illustration’ drawing.
Every style imaginable has served as either fine art or illustration, even abstraction.
Some say that ‘illustration’ illustrates a text. So does much ‘fine art’ drawing from Rembrandt to Anselm Kiefer.
Others might say that illustration is created for money. Much fine art is commissioned. In the past, most was.
Even work created for a gallery show is created ‘on spec.’ Much illustration is as well – Brad Holland, for example, makes pictures and slots them into assignments as they arrive.

PART III – Current Trends
Right now, illustration drawing and fine art drawing are closer than they’ve been since to 50′s or 60′s.
Artists like Dave Cooper and James Jean are jumping between the two worlds
There *are* real differences between the social and financial worlds of illustration and fine art.
Illustrators tend to know other illustrators, gallery artists hang out with other gallery artists, and art directors and gallery owners have little to do with one another.

-Alex Rosmarin. Exhibited Works. May 9th. Zza’s Wine Bar Gallery. 550 Grand Ave. Oakland 6-9pm.

Thank you all for participating in the inquiry. Stay tuned for more updates about the Sweetart Gallery of Drawing…title not official yet. (http://www.oaklandsweetart.info)  Obi Kaufmann