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Marshall Arisman (October 14, 1938 – April 22, 2022) was an American
illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
,
painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
, storyteller, and
educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
.


Biography

Arisman was born in
Jamestown, New York Jamestown is a city in southern Chautauqua County, in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 28,712 at the 2020 census. Situated between Lake Erie to the north and the Allegheny National Forest to the south, Jamestown is the largest po ...
, on October 14, 1938, where he grew up on a dairy farm. He studied advertising art at the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...
, graduating in 1960. He received an Ida Gaskell Grant to travel and study in Europe after graduating. He completed military service, then began his career as a graphic designer, working for General Motors.


Career

While working as a graphic designer for General Motors, Arisman took evening courses in figure drawing. He went on to produce illustrations for major American periodicals including ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', '' Mother Jones'', ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', '' OMNI'', ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'', and '' Penthouse''. He has also illustrated books, including ''Fitcher's Bird'' (1983), and ''Frozen Images'' (1974), published by Visual Arts Press. Arisman created a multimedia installation work titled ''The Last Tribe'' (2009). An exploration of the theme of nuclear annihilation, the work incorporates painting, sculpture, and video. The video can be viewed online. Arisman's paintings have been exhibited in a number of one-man shows in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Permanent collections that include Arisman's paintings include the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...
, the Smithsonian, and the Museum of American Art. His show ''Sacred Monkeys'' was the first American exhibit to be shown in Mainland China, and his work is included in a permanent collection in China. More recently, he has exhibited the ''Ayahuasca Series'', a series of oil paintings, which is in part based on the religious rituals of the
Quechua people Quechua people (, ; ) or Quichua people, may refer to any of the aboriginal people of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, ther ...
. His ''Ayahuasca Series'' was on exhibit at the Zadok Gallery in Miami, Florida, from January 1 to May 1, 2012. Arisman released an album of his own stories, ''Cobalt Blue'', in 2008. He was chair of the degree program "Illustration as Visual Essay" at the
School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...
in New York City.


Themes and influences

Violence and predation are central themes in many of Arisman's works. His early work, Frozen Images (1974), was a reflection on "personal, environmental, and media-driven" violence. Arisman's illustrations and paintings are characteristically dark, expressionistic depictions of figures in tortured postures; torn flesh, blood, and violent force recur throughout his works, depicted with smeared brush strokes against black shadowy backgrounds. Other works, such as ''Charging Buffalo'' (2008), while remaining expressionistic in style, are less menacing, and may be interpreted as reflections on primal connections with the environment and with a regenerative life force. As influences, he has cited
André François André François (9 November 1915 – 11 April 2005), born André Farkas, was a Hungarian-born French cartoonist. Life He was born in Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania), He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budap ...
,
Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
, Velázquez,
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
,
Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
, and primitive art. In his illustration work, Arisman approaches each piece without making a distinction between commercial or fine art. The barrier is one that he has been confronted with throughout his career: "the fine art world stigmatizes people for illustrating ..Every gallery tells me to quit illustration".


Publications

Arisman has published several books, including: * ''Frozen Images'' (1973) * ''Art of the Times'' * ''Artists' Christmas Cards'' * ''Images of Labor'' * ''Fitcher's Bird'' * ''The Wolf Who Loved Music'' (2003) * ''Heaven Departed'' * ''The Cat Who Invented Bebop'' (2009) * ''Divine Elvis'' * ''A Postcard from Lilydale'' Arisman has also co-authored ''Inside the Business of Illustration'' and co-edited ''The Education of an Illustrator, Teaching Illustration.''


See also

*
Animism Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...
* Expressionism *
Installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
* Storytelling


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arisman, Marshall 1938 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters American illustrators American speculative fiction artists Pratt Institute alumni American storytellers 20th-century American male artists People from Jamestown, New York