Don Ivan Punchatz\nBorn September 8, 1936 – October 22, 2009\nEducation School of Visual Arts studying under Burne Hogarth\n\nMr. Punchatz was born on Sept. 8, 1936, in Hillside, N.J. He moved to New York after high school with a full scholarship to the School of Visual Arts. There he studied with Burne Hogarth, who illustrated the “Tarzan” comic strip. He later worked as an assistant television art director and produced animation and filmstrips.\n\nDrafted into the Army in 1959, he worked as a medical illustrator and producer of animated training films. After his discharge he was an art director at Ketchum, MacLeod & Grove advertising in Pittsburgh, handling accounts like Alcoa, Stouffer’s, Calgon and Westinghouse.\n\nHe was associated with the illustrative genre of fantasy known as magic realism, but he could also be a playful satirist for magazines like Playboy, Esquire and Rolling Stone. One of his more comic political commentaries, a cover for the 1974 “Civics” issue of National Lampoon, showed President Gerald R. Ford, who had a reputation for clumsiness, nonchalantly smashing a chocolate ice cream cone into his forehead.\n\nMr. Punchatz also made accurate animal illustrations for National Geographic magazine. His keen ability to render detail was often impractical for editorial illustration on tight deadlines, so to ease his workload he hired multiple assistants. In 1970 he opened SketchPad Studio in a small room behind a strip mall in Arlington; it became the training ground for dozens of apprentices known as “the elves.”\n\nMr. Punchatz was never an expert at the business side of illustration. In the early days of video games he was hired to create the packaging for a new game, and when offered a flat fee or a percentage of the game’s profits, he opted for the fee. The game, Doom, became a runaway best seller. “So how was I to know,” he said, “this thing called Doom would make a jillion smackers?” \n\nHonors:\nElected to Spectrum\'s Grandmasters for lifetime achievement award \n\nonline gallery https://americangallery.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/don-ivan-punchatz-1936-2009/

Don Ivan Punchatz History of American Illustration