Brad Holland – A Revolutionary Illustrator
Brad Holland is an American Illustrator and author that has had a great impact on the world of illustration from the 1960s and onward. His interest began before the age of 17 as a revelation that happened in response to his admiration of stained-glass windows in a church, and his disinterest in pursuing a formal education after junior high.
Holland began his pursuit in the art world by trying to sell cartoons, although he did not have success in his attempts. Among his rejection letters were rejections from places such as Disney and the Saturday Evening Post. However, Brad took the rejection letters in stride and continued his path. His first jobs consisted of mowing lawns, and then once he moved to Chicago he had even received rejection from a shoe store due to lack of working experience. His first job was sweeping the floors of a tattoo parlor, but his first art-related job had been working in a small studio — and this was the small door opened that allowed him a path to his larger, later successes in his career; such as being offered to do regular work for Playboy and the New York Times.
In the beginning of his career, Holland was against using anyone else’s ideas outside of his own — this was one reason why he had been content with rejection, because even though he questioned himself about whether or not this would for him in the end, he didn’t give up, and eventually it was Playboy that had viewed his portfolio and had worked with Brad to include a different style of work in their magazines. This also led to other magazines trying to contact the illustrator once they saw the works that were being published and it turned his rejection into success.
Regarding Brad’s interesting illustrative style, he has stated this his style was very influenced by admired artists such as Ben Shahn and Hokusai. However, with his career kickstarting he had wanted to develop a more natural style of his own in comparison to the influenced style he had had, especially when he was working for Playboy. Brad’s process of finding his own style was a eureka moment for him, in an interview he explained that he had been working on ink drawings for a novel, and in doing so, he had spent the day doodling with ball point pens on large manila envelopes before setting them aside to revisit them later in the day. This is where he realized he had found his style that he was looking for, which he described as unself-conscious.
Given Brad’s determination to take artistic ideas into his own hands, all his works, especially illustrations done in pen and ink, have a way of communicating the meanings visually, but in a way where you must read into the works to get that ‘ah-ha’ feeling and recognition of the subject. One example is his piece ‘Literary Beast’ (pictured below), at first glance, it simply looks like an ink drawing of a large, hairy beast, but when the viewer looks closely, the beast has pen nibs for teeth that protrude from his top lip — hinting at the ‘literary’ part of the subject.
