Norman Saunders: A Painted Legacy

[Lone Ranger]

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of corresponding via email with Norman Saunders' eldest daughter, Blaine. Blaine got in touch with me after seeing my blog entry on her father's painting of the Frankenstein Monster for Classics Illustrated #26.

Blaine was kind enough to share her thoughts and memories of her father, both as an artist and as a man. He sounds like quite a characters and it sounds as though life in the Saunders household was colorful, to say the least. With Blaine's kind permission, I though I would share our correspondences with the folks here at Classics Comics, as I know there are many Norman Saunders fans amongst the regulars.

I've tried to organize the correspondence thematically, which may or may not work well. What we do have, however, is a first hand account of the life and work or one of a true legend.

I told Blaine that I'd point her towards this thread, so hopefully she will check it out. I'm sure she'd love to read everyone's thoughts and comments.

My thanks in advance to Blaine, as this has been a real treat for me.

[Lone Ranger]

Norman Saunders – Frankenstein’s Monster
In which we learn of the artist’s passion for the subject matter and his unique, energetic approach to producing a masterpiece

You’ve heard of the passion of Christ, well this one is the passion of Frankenstein. You hit the nail on the head. Dad wanted to present the soul of Frankenstein, the central experience and so he chose this scene under the Northern Lights, and with the dogs still at his heels...

How did he paint it? He put on a too tight jacket from his prop room, messed up his hair with water, went back to the prop room, got out his old army boots, wrapped torn sheets with ropes around the boots, leaned over some boxes, turned on the giant giraffe light that dad had bought at JC Leyendecker's Estate sale, [you can probably google JC's images; he was THE greatest story- telling illustrator, as well as the greatest American painter of my Dad's formative youth, all his work is like something that Capra could have made a film from, my dad had collected All Leyendeckers work as it was published on the covers of the Saturday Eve Post when he was a kid] Dad used that lamp in a very different way than Leyendecker had, to get those Dramatic Saunders Shadows he wanted. Then as I watched, Dad acted out the role of that moment in Frank’s life, and he became all the drama and emotion for that moment, just like Bogey could become Sam Spade (Maltese Falcon) or Captain Queeg (Caine Mutiny) while slowly Dad’s Polaroid clicked on time release exposure. He'd take a handful of shots, and then start the painting.

He knew exactly what he wanted, and had already designed the whole picture and sketched it in lightly before he had to shoot. He always used live models during his career in pulps, but by the time he did this he used a Polaroid, and worked from his little b/w photos under a magnifying box get-up he designed and built for his reference shots. I’m so glad to think that what he wanted to show with that cover still hits home across the decades all these years later.

The moment I saw the painting big, on your site, it took my breath away. Maybe cause I hadn’t seen it for so long, maybe cause the painting is so luxurious in its color, so tenderly painted and intense in its drama...but it was like walking into dad's studio again and seeing it live. I was right back upstairs in his studio in our house after school, just like the day he painted it... And you were so spot-on in what you saw in it. That’s why I commented. I asked him about what his painting had to do with Frankenstein, and he said, “Blaine that was the most moving part of the book, the relentless chase after the poor creature... Those dogs at his heels... nowhere left to go...” When I saw your image, that anguish and pathos were all over dad's face, just as he became that part 50 years ago to capture Frankenstein’s soul from the inside.

That was his secret, like Preston Sturges, who, after he wrote his screenplay, and was directing his movie, acted out every single part for all the major the actors...timing, body language, the works, and then got them to enact it, exactly as he imagined every character. Norm Saunders created every painting as an actual event in his mind, watching it as he rolled the movie mentally, and then stopped it at the moment of crisis, making a mental "still" of that moment. Then using himself, and his models to capture that moment exactly as he wanted it, he shot it on polaroid [or painted it from live models] character by character. That’s how he did it, he literally created the storyboard of that moment, got the models, or himself to become his characters, costumes, props and all, and painted his vision, which carried his life.

[Lone Ranger]

Norman Saunders – The Man
In which we learn of the man who seemingly stepped out from the Silver Screen

Norm played a great jazz piano; boogie woogie in the Fats Waller style, with a powerful throbbing left hand base line. I loved to listen to him play so fast and free, the rest of the family upstairs watching TV after dinner, on our old upright piano and once asked him about it. He told me, “When I was a young man I played professionally on a Mississippi riverboat. In fact there was a time that I could seriously have gone either way.” “What do ya mean dad?” “Oh, I could’ve gone either way, east into the art game, or just as easily gone west.” He didn’t say anymore. This was a new one on me, “West?” I thought a few moments, “You mean…like…Hollywood?” “Yeah. It was a toss up. But I decided that I’d rather make pictures, than be in ‘em. It could’ve gone either way.” Visions of my dad, a famous movie star with mansions and millions danced in my head, “Aw, dad, why didn’t you do it?” “You better be glad I didn’t Blaine.” “Why?” “Cause if I had, you wouldn’t be here.”

As for what Norm Saunders was like, just watch Bill Powell in any Thin Man movie, and you’ve got him in the room with you. And mom was a whole lot like Myrna Loy. Throw in some Bogart, actually just about like the Sam Spade role; tough, realistic, idealistic and a little humble. Never taking himself too seriously, but true to his code right down to his core, I kid you not. He aged just like Powell too, you can see a lot of Norm if you watch Powell in “Mr. Roberts.” When I was a teen I started going to Classic films at the New Yorker Theater, in Manhattan where we lived. Sitting in the dark with my friends at my first WC Fields film my world exploded before my eyes, God help me, that’s where dad got his whole shtick as a parent...watch Fields relate to kids, and you'll know Norm Saunders' parenting style.

NOTE - Blaine's Mother My Mom worked in magazine industry for years, ending up Editor and Chief for a bunch of McCalls and Fawcetts craft magazines. According to Blaine, she was very bright with a great sense of humor, she adored my dad. The sunglasses illustration was painted from Mom, Ellene.

[Lone Ranger]

Home on the Range with Norm Saunders, 312 W 104 NYC
In which we learn of Life at 312 just off Riverside Drive…

Quirky that in the new Batman movie Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne’s address is 312 Riverside Drive… where did that come from?

When I was a kid riding sooty subways lurching up into the boroughs, I used to look out over the skyline and wonder how people got so lucky they could grow up in “Pointy-Top” houses. By the time I was three, Norm, Mom, me and Jimmy moved to the upper westside of Manhattan to a one family brownstone house, right out of a gothic novel. Dad bought a house four stories high, with huge goldleafed chandeliers, mirrors nine feet high, a dumbwaiter and forgotten french phone intercom system just across from Riverside Park and the Hudson River before he even showed it to mom. Norm bought a full suit of armor to stand at the landing, (today it stands in my house) and filled the house up with saddles, swords, skulls, paintings and books, and three years later with a new baby sister and then baby brother. With a backyard and carpentry “shop” in the basement, with rabbits, a monkey and my aquarium full of pet mice, stickball and hopscotch in the streets, you’d have thought it was heaven.

But I always wanted to get our world out of the fist of the City… into a world that was bigger than the world of NY. There’s a Frank Capra movie that’s about a house like the place that Norm Saunders called home, you can visit him in his world , its called “You Can't Take It With You.” Norm was born in a log Cabin his dad built, and grew up on the States side of the Canadian border, in the North Woods. His mom was half full blooded Indian, his dad’s family had come from the British Isles in 1733.

And I guess that call of the wild always kept calling for me. I once read that Cagney visited the country when he was a kid, and always wanted to get back. He did. Well it was the same for me…but I never even got into the country…just to the rooftops of Brooklyn… Today my husband, John Halley, photojournalist for a small city newspaper, and I live in brick paved college town. I spend my life working hard at my paintings, cramming all the juice of my life into a canvas that’s two feet by three feet. Everyday its like going to war, and to me it rides like a rollercoaster through heaven.

[Lone Ranger]

Norman Saunders - The Next Generation
In which we learn of Norman Saunders’ post-war life and his growing family of artists.

After Norm spent two years freezing and sweating in Burma building the Burma Road pipeline during WWII, learning Chinese, and traveling up into Tibet alone, he landed back in NYC met my mom through a conversation about Lao Tzu, fell in love, married her and by 1947 I was born in Hells Kitchen, NY. Being the first-born I was the first Saunders to hit the streets of NY with my portfolio, and landed a job at 18 as illustrator and assistant art director at Mademoiselle Magazine. But I only wanted to get freelance work, I had been attending Parsons School of design. When they offered me full time, I asked them if I could think it over and went home to ask Dad his advice. He didn’t even know I had been showing my portfolio around. Norm said "Good God Blaine, Yes you should take it! You'll learn more there in the next two years than you could learn at Parsons in a lifetime, and they’ll pay YOU to learn it!"

All I can say is, thank God I had enough humility to trust my dad. But maybe I wasn’t so humble after all... maybe I just happened to be there...cause like I said, it was like having Bogie’s Sam Spade give you personal advice ... you knew he knew his game, and you knew you were lucky to be let in on it. What a guy. After 1 1/2 yrs steady at Mademoiselle I illustrated freelance for over ten years for all the major women’s magazines, including a stint as asst. art director at Cosmopolitan. Now I paint what I like.

Next on the Saunders totem pole came my brother Jimmy, who in the last decade has been doing small, beautiful very precision sculptures, he lives on a boat docked at Manhattan. Much later my little sister Zina started doing illustration work in NY in the early 1990s and continues very successfully today. Last came my baby brother David who told me he thought illustration work didn’t pay enough. This was after I proudly showed him the painting I was working on for a job for Redbook, that was paying me $1700 for it, (which for me, a 22 year old was big bucks in the early 70's,) and that this painting would be seen by more than thirty thousand people. He was in Junior High. He looks me right in the eye and says, "Why do a painting for $1700 for thirty thousand people when you could do a painting for One person for thirty thousand dollars?"

"Who ARE you?" I thought.

To me a big part of art has always been that you could work you heart off on a piece, do the best picture that blood sweat and tears could buy, and then share it with everybody. I guess that’s why magazines and museums always appealed to me the most. So Dave decided to go fine art. So he went to Kansas City Art Institute, hooked up with Red Grooms, has had good gallery shows and done installation work over the years. He did the Big Apple fence installation for LaGuardia airport.

NOTE - It is incredible how the artistic blood courses through the veins of the Saunders clan. Below is a recent painting by Blaine. She shared it with me recently, as it seemed appropriate for this time of year.

[Lone Ranger]

The Saunders Magic
In which we learn that it is impossible to catch lightning in a bottle

Seven years ago or so Dave asked me how I thought Dad managed to get from Minn. to NY. I said," Dave, its cause dad was a Genius." I laughed. "Look Dave, you’re supposed to be a fine artist, you're supposed to know how to paint in oils. Well you try to do what dad did. I mean it, you sit down with one of his paintings, and you try to make a copy of it. Not just a figure from it, but try to copy the whole painting. You wont be able to do it. And then realize that He didn’t copy it. He did it from within, and he did it every week. " After that David seemed to understand why I have such a high regard for Dads work."

The Saunders Legacy Continues
In which we learn that the family has very strong artistic genes

My second son; Ty Halley, Norms's grandson, majors in Digital Media, with a concentration in animation, and a minor in art at Ohio University. Ty has an online comic, www.Subcultureshock.com


With that, we conclude our look at Norman Saunders through the eyes of his daughter.

I hope that you enjoyed it.

For more on Norman Saunders, including countless examples of his work - check out his official site:
http://www.normansaunders.com/

[Aaron King]

This was a great read that I plan on revisiting; thanks.

Coffee table book?

[Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Aaron King

This was a great read that I plan on revisiting; thanks.

Coffee table book?

I was actually shocked to discover that there has yet to be a definitive biography of Norman Saunders.

Maybe something I should tackle in my spare time.

Spare time... where are you???

In all seriousness, if anyone deserves the coffee table treatment, it would be Norman Saunders.

[MDG]

For all the great stuff Saunders did, I gravitate to some of his most "lowbrow" stuff--the man's magazine covers and his work for Topps (especially things like the Frankenstein stickers).

MDG

[Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by MDG

For all the great stuff Saunders did, I gravitate to some of his most "lowbrow" stuff--the man's magazine covers and his work for Topps (especially things like the Frankenstein stickers).

MDG

Not 'lowbrow' at all - it's all gorgeous and fun.

Take a look at the website's Trading Cards section - I'm amazed by how many of the Wolverton/Saunders 'Ugly Stickers', 'Rubber Uglies' and 'Make Your Own Name' images from the 60s look like they could have been used for Plop! covers in the 70s.

[Lone Ranger]

Here are some great photos that Blaine shared with me today.

My thanks again to her for a peek into the Saunders family.

As I said to her last week, I could spend a few days browsing through all of the various bits of artwork on the website.

1. As she described, Norman acted as a model for many of his paintings. Here he is striking an action pose - can anyone match the pose to the painting? I think I have an idea - but I'd like to hear what others might think.
2. A wonderful photograph of Norman with his young daugher Blaine. I'm guessing that this photo is circa 1950.
3. Norman Saunders sharing a nice moment his grandson, Ty. I would think this photo was taken not long before Norman's passing in 1989.

[Ray R.]

This is all kinds of awesome, Scott.

[Slam_Bradley]

Good stuff, Scott.

I too, am sometimes amazed at the people who haven't had a good biography done of them. Makes me wish I had the time and the talent to write non-fiction.

[benday-dot]

I always loved that Saunders' cover from Fawcett... the one with all the eyeballs in the background. I can't seem to remember the name of the comic right now, but it was a "goody" for sure.

If only my life could be half as interesting as the that of the Saunders' clan. Going to Tibet on a solo adventure in the 40's alone is not only the coolest thing, but an instance of life mirroring art. It seems like Suanders life half emerges from right out of the pulps he so well illustrated.

Thanks for sharing Scott!

[Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by benday-dot

I always loved that Saunders' cover from Fawcett... the one with all the eyeballs in the background. I can't seem to remember the name of the comic right now, but it was a "goody" for sure.

Ooohh, that is a great one.

You're thinking of Worlds of Fear #10 - wonderfully disturbing.

Another of my favourite Fawcett covers is Strange Stories From Another Worlds #4. I used to own a copy - but it was the victim of a capital raising campaign a couple of years back.

I've noticed that a couple of people have included the Powell/Saunders Batman cards are part of their 12 Days of Christmas selections. That's awesome. I had some of those cards passed down to me from an uncle. I just loved them - they were so unique looking. I wish I knew where they went.