Jim Howard, "Cartoon" (circa 1982), charcoal pencil on paper (all images courtesy the artist)

DENVER — Section stores transformed the advent of Us newspapers through advertisements starting in the late 19th century, introducing drawings to fresh layouts and pioneering new typography. The ads, more and then than the products themselves, made store brands visually identifiable. Fashion illustration was preferred over photography in these campaigns through the 1980s, and illustrator Jim Howard was one of its pioneers. He is, amidst other things, credited with the stylistic shift from gestural renderings, common before 1960, to realistic narrative scenes. Drawn to Glamour: Fashion Illustrations by Jim Howard at the Denver Art Museum presents Howard as a fascinating example study of fine art's intersection with commerce during the golden age of fashion illustration, echoing major shifts in consumer behavior and recording an art career that doesn't exist today.

Portrait of Jim Howard (circa 1965)

While in junior college, Howard took a job dressing windows and cartoon advertisements at Goodfriends, a fashion store in Austin, Texas. Eventually, his portfolio took him to Neiman Marcus in Dallas in 1957, the most important section store in the US at the time. He joined a team of vii illustrators who saw the garment equally a pathway to an aspirational lifestyle. "When Jim worked at Neiman Marcus his master goal was to reflect, through drawing, the section store as a temple of luxury. In the 1950s, department stores were competing with the couture houses, they were trying to be as sophisticated as the salons of the swell designers," the exhibition curator Florence Müller stated in an interview with Hyperallergic.

The architecturally interesting buildings with a range of services were a subsidiary attraction to the way, only contributed to an overall experience that an economically various audience of customers arguably sought. "Historically, the department shop was the starting time place where you could touch without an obligation to buy. You lot could walk in and inquire to see something or try information technology on. These stores were the democratization of mode and access. Previously, you had to accept a project for someone to attend to you," noted Müller.

Jim Howard, "Cartoon" (circa 1960), charcoal pencil and ink on paper

Howard's 1960 drawing of a yellow clothes as a static portrait in a gestural fashion was typical of its fourth dimension. Although Howard did not introduce the idea of background to way illustration, he was the starting time to motion toward a realistic scene, producing an image alike to a single frame of a moving-picture show, such as the analogy of a chichi woman distracted by the fashions in the store window while walking her dog. Entangled past the leash, she remains stylishly posed for the reader to consummate the story. As the borders blurred between casual and formal wear in the 1950s, Howard'due south narratives had a greater influence over customers, instructing them to habiliment a trending safari jacket or gypsy wearing apparel.

Jim Howard, "Drawing" (circa 1980), charcoal pencil on paper

Howard'southward compositions are marked by theatrical up-lighting, drawn every bit if a spotlight shone up toward the face from below. This effect made even a casual beach scene seem extraordinary, an feel the stores wanted to identify with their make. Müller noted that when Howard left Neiman Marcus in 1961, he was sought out past Bonwit Teller, Marshall Field's, Bon Marche, and others, "the same way a famous lensman like Peter Lindbergh is desired,"to have his signature mode.

Jim Howard, "Cartoon" (circa 1975), charcoal pencil on newspaper

An executive training course transcript from Higbee Co. in 1938 states, "feel her wants, her doubts … encourage her to have backbone to dress ameliorate or create a lovelier home for herself." Department stores saw their primary customers equally women and wanted to understand their perspective. It is a concept Jim Howard, at present 88 years old, reiterated in an interview with Hyperallergic: "an analogy allows a woman to meet herself in the wearing apparel, while a photograph of a supermodel or glory does not."

Howard's illustrations present impossibly lean and long figures, raising the question to what extent illustrators played in driving or reflecting dazzler standards. "It is a constant topic in the history of fashion analogy," notes Müller. "First of all, it is drawing, non reality. Artistic limerick is something that reflects the taste of the artist and the time. Wait at the offset mode magazine, Mecure galant, published in 17th-century France. It followed the trends of Louis XIV with some mode plates and text; already at that place was an elongated ideal image."

Jim Howard, "Drawing" (circa 1978), charcoal pencil on newspaper

With 100 works from 1950 to 1990 on display, there is a remarkable absence of models of color — not every customer was invited to taste the life of luxury. Howard conceded that illustrations with brunettes would often exist sent back to exist fabricated blonde, only recalled beingness the first to illustrate black and Hispanic women for Bonwit Teller, though these drawings are not included in the exhibition.

Drawn to Glamouroffers fascinating insight into how drawings conjured a want in consumers to experience something conveniently for sale. Although the exhibition reveals desperate changes in commercial paradigm-making in the last 50 years, it makes information technology nonetheless obvious that the people occupying those images and runways remain static.

Fatigued to Glamour: Way Illustration by Jim Howardcontinues at the Denver Art Museum (100 Westward. 14th Avenue Pkwy, Denver, CO) through August v.