NORMAN ADAMS
If Commercial Art, Illustration, would have had a Babe Ruth then it would have been Norman Adams.
Babe Ruth was so good at Baseball that he could pick the professional team he wanted to play for. He chose the best team at the time, the New York Yankees.
When Norman Adams graduated from Art School in LA his technical skills and artistic versatility were so impressive that the managers of the three top Illustration agencies in NY wanted him. Norman Adams chose the most preeminent Illustration agency in the world at the time, the Charles E Cooper Studio that was like the “New York Yankees” of Illustration.
Norman Adams could pick the agency he wanted to work for when Commercial Art was the most lucrative profession and there were thousands of perfectly good illustrators in the world that would have given anything to get an interview with Cooper Studios, let alone get a job.
Norman Adams' technical skills were not the main reason the major Illustration agencies wanted him, it was his artistic versatility. Back then most successful Illustrators specialized, just like most doctors today specialize.
When Norman Adams went to work for Charles Cooper he could do any job Cooper gave him. Indeed Cooper hired Norman Adams because he knew that Norman could do any job as well as if not better than his specialized “major league “ Illustrators.
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When his technical skills were at their best Norman Adams did something that few artists could afford to do. In the mid 1980's Norman Adams was paid to paint the most impressive paintings that would impress the public, at art shows.
For nearly five years Norman Adams was paid to paint … the best he could. Not only did many of these paintings win all sorts of Best of Shows but they were “show-stoppers.”
While Norman Adams is alive these major paintings are for sale by the original owner who paid him to do these paintings. After he has gone these original paintings and many drawings will also vanish from the open market …. just like all the other original paintings of all the other professional illustrators have vanished from the open market.
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Golden Grand, 36”x76” oil on canvas painting by Norman Adams
This
Grand Canyon painting with a life-sized Golden Eagle is by far the
most significant and stunning painting of Norman Adams. He painted
it for its current and original owner to be a “show-stopper”
for the most popular Wildlife Art Shows in the country during the
mid 1980s. It was far more than just “Best of Show.” It
was a routine show-stopper.
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“It
takes a genius to spot a super-genius.”
Most of us are
blind to all the creativity, talent, work and effort
that lies
hidden behind what pleases us, what entertains us.
Often only those
“entertainers” who must compete with each other
can
realize all the creativity, talent, work and effort
it takes to
entertain better than anyone else.
History gives us example after example of how a genius is dumbfounded or awed by greater genius, a super-genius.
Perhaps the best example comes with the movie Good Will Hunting. In the movie a Fields Medal winning math professor discovers that a janitor, Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon, is a genius far far beyond anything the math professor can imagine. The professor tells the janitor that perhaps only five people in the world are smart enough to be dumbfounded by the super-genius, the janitor, Will Hunting.
Mozart's story, Amadeus, echoes the same. While the rest of the world was, at best, entertained with Mozart's music it took one of the greatest composers of his time, Antonio Salieri, to be literally dumbfounded by the super-genius Mozart.
So too with Johann Sebastian Bach. For over two hundred years Bach was unknown to the world until two geniuses of music Franz List and Frederic Chopin came along to be dumbfounded at the super-genius of Bach.
When Norman Adams was still a youngster he obsessively bought and procured every magazine/ book that had illustrations by great Illustrators, especially Robert Fawcett. Fawcett was so super-successful at selling products, magazines and books with his images that the less-successful Illustrators called him the “Illustrator's Illustrator.”
Today Robert Fawcett is buried deep under the hundreds of billions of dollars that make “Modern Art” look good. But when Norman Adams was awed by Robert Fawcett he was exactly like Mozart was to music: Robert Fawcett was so super-successful at selling ideas, products... magazines and books with his visual-images that he was the standard by which “the most creative, successful, wealthy and famous professionals (Famous Artists School) the world has EVER known” would be judged.
Norman Adams.
When it came to creating images that sells ideals, ideas,
products, books and magazines to the public
Norman Adams was not
just a genius but a super-genius.
And it took a genius –
the Illustrator's Illustrator, Robert Fawcett – to realize it.
By the time
Norman Adams arrived on a “red-carpet” at the Charles
E. Cooper Studio, in New York, Robert Fawcett was an old man.
Norman Adams met this old man, Robert Fawcett, only once. It was at
a Society
of Illustrators meeting.
The young neophyte Norman spotted the Old Man, Robert Fawcett, at the other end of the auditorium and was so intimidated by his idol/god that he had to turn around and lose himself.
Then what was unimaginable to Norman happened: Norman’s idol, Robert Fawcett, came up behind Norman and touched him on the shoulder and -- just like Salieri must have introduced himself to Mozart – the Illustrator’s Illustrator introduced himself to the new kid on the block: Norman Adams.
Only after watching
the movie Good Will Hunting, and Amadeus, can one realize why Robert
Fawcett -- the Illustrator’s Illustrator -- would
go up and introduce himself to a neophyte, a relative unknown, like
Norman Adams.
Robert Fawcett had seen Norman Adams'
paintings, so he knew exactly why Charles E. Cooper rolled out the
proverbial red-carpet for the youngster Norman Adams. It was because
he had the technical skills and the artistic versatility to create
images that could sell ideas, products.... magazines probably better
than anyone else in the business.
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