In January of 2011 we featured the remarkable career of Harry Borgman, presented in a time line format, written by the artist himself. Throughout the week long journey we had the opportunity to see the art of Harry Borgman, from present day - going as far back as his early childhood years. Illustration Pages presented this rare retrospective of Harry Borgman's art and illustrations, as seen through the eyes of the artist.
I’d like to thank Harry for putting this all together for Illustration Pages. Harry’s feature is a culmination of many hours of collaboration between he and I - the result is a written record of the career of an artist who was a giant in the field of advertising and one of the most prolific and influential artists of our time. I’m proud that it’s been documented right here on Illustration Pages.
Introduction by Lou Simeone
Harry Borgman is an artist whose professional career has embraced both the commercial and fine art worlds. He worked for many years as a graphic designer and illustrator before joining the advertising agency Campbell- Ewald in Detroit, where he was head art director on the Chevrolet account designing catalogs, sales promotion material, and later the magazine ads. He has won many awards for his graphic design work and illustrations. After several years working in- agency, Borgman decided he wanted the creative versatility to be found only in freelancing. He worked for major clients in Detroit, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
As a teacher he was Chairman of the Advertising Department at the Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies) in Detroit. His courses included advertising design, illustration and cartooning. In 1977 he decided to move to Europe and settled in Paris, France where he soon established himself as an artist for the top advertising agencies there. He also worked in the fine arts and exhibited regularly in all of the major French painting salons He also worked in Vienna, Austria, creating automotive campaigns. He was hired by Lintas to teach layout rendering to their art staffs in Jakarta, Singapore as well as in Madrid.
After several years in Europe he moved to New York City where he spent ten years working in advertising doing illustrations and various graphic design projects. He also did much work in the fine arts doing paintings and sculpture which were exhibited in the Allen Wincor Gallery. He now lives in Sawyer, Michigan and devotes his full time to fine art projects.
Several years ago he discovered the infinite possibilities of digital art and continues to test the limits of the computer as an art medium. In addition, he sculpts a variety of subjects in wood, designs metal and wood constructions. He has exhibited his digital prints, paintings and sculpture in galleries, art centers and museums.
He has written several art technique books that were published by Watson-Guptill Publications, including “Pen and Pencil Drawing Techniques”, which has recently been reprinted by Dover Publications. His recent books are “Art Therapy” a book of his cartoons about the fine art world, “Surrealities”, a book of his photomontages, and “digital Dreams” a book that explores the computer as an art medium.
Harry Borgman Biography: Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Sculptor and Artist
by Harry Borgman
I am an artist that’s had a very long, fun career that began in Detroit in 1943 while I was still in high school. Since I was 15 years old I have worked full time in the advertising business through to 2004, when I was 76 years old. I actually haven’t really quit yet, I just stopped rendering storyboards because of the brutal overnight deadlines. I still do an occasional illustration and design assignment.
Over the years , as the business changed, and it is constantly changing, I reinvented myself several times, starting out as a graphic designer, then later working as an illustrator doing realistic work and even a lot of cartoons. At one point I even left the studio business to become an art director at Campbell Ewald in Detroit, working on the Chevrolet account for a few years. After that I spent the rest of my career working as an illustrator/graphic designer, primarily as a freelance artist working in Detroit, New York and even worked a few years in Paris, France. I also taught and worked in Madrid, Vienna, Jakarta and Singapore.
The years 1941-1946
As a kid, like many other artists, I drew many comic strips and even drew a daily strip for my classmates in grade school. My teachers were all very encouraging which was a great help. Some of them even sent me to special art classes after the normal school day had ended and also on Saturdays.
The years 1947-1952
I won a scholarship to the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit. The teacher that was teaching advertising art had never even worked in the business. I had already been working for 3 years, so I decided to quit the school and start working.
It was in 1949 that Herb Schiebold, my best friend, another great graphic designer, and I decided to start a commercial art studio called Advance Art Studios. We were 19 years old and obviously had a lot of guts. We had an office in a downtown Detroit and hired a rep to dig up work for us. He was successful in bringing in many assignments from Chrysler. Things were going really well when suddenly the workers at the Chrysler plant went on strike. The strike was quite long and the assignments from Chrysler were becoming less frequent until finally we found our selves out of business. We had to close the operation.
A few weeks later I ran into the former art director that I worked with at Brophy Engraving, Jim Donahue. He had just opened a new commercial art studio called Allied Artists. He hired me and I worked there as a graphic designer for a few years.
One day, when I had some spare time, I did a painting of a western scene with a little red Ford driving near some buttes. Jim loved the painting and decide to take it to the art director of Ford Times Magazine. The art director loved it and said they would buy all the paintings I did that had a little red Ford included. This was my first big break in the business.
In 1951 I decided to venture out and left Allied Artists. I began working at Grey, Garfield, Lange, an older established commercial art studio. I produced a lot of illustration and design work there, including the painting for the cover of the 1952 General Motors Annual Report.
The years 1953-1960
After a year at Grey, Garfield, Lange I left and began working at Jose Cavillo Studios. It was a short stay as I soon was hired as a graphic designer and illustrator by McNamara Brothers, a new studio that had just opened. Dave Lindsay was their top automotive artist and we worked as a team on many assignments. I was very busy at McNamara’s and recall designing five automotive catalogs over one weekend. When the designs were approved then the studio artists would be working day and night on the artwork to meet the tough deadlines. This was known as “Catalog Season” and it lasted for about three or four months. This was the prime source of business for most of the Detroit art studios.
In 1955 Dave Lindsay and I left McNamara’s to become partners at MDM Studios. I was mainly working as a graphic designer during this period. We were extremely busy and after one year I was literally burned out. I decided to quit the studio business altogether and become an advertising agency art director. I approached Campbell Ewald, as I liked what Jim Hastings, the creative director, was doing on the Chevrolet account. Jim knew of my work and was happy to hire me. He liked to hire artists with studio experience. I began working as head art director on Chevrolet sales promotion, designing catalogs for Chevrolet and Corvette.
I later became head art director on Chevrolet magazine ads for a year, then worked in a special two man idea group called Plus One with writer Fenton Ludtke. We were in direct competition with the regular Chevrolet group and presented our ideas at the regular meetings. We had no restrictions on what we could do, so we had fun experimenting with ideas. I’m certain that the regular Chevrolet group was not too happy about the situation. I was a partner in this group for about a year.
Jim Hastings was moving up in the ranks and offered me his job as creative director. I refused and decided to quit as I felt that it was more of an administrative job. I decided to become a freelance designer and illustrator. But, when I quit, I was immediately rehired to work on a very secret, special project, the Corvair announcement ads. Campbell Ewald set me up in an office in the GM Building. My former co-workers at the agency wondered why I was still coming in to work every day after leaving the agency. I couldn’t tell anyone about my secret project nor could I let anyone in my office. When I needed to have type set, I would split up the copy and send it to three different typesetters, then reassemble it later to create the ads.
The years 1960-1968
After working on the Corvair announcement ads, I began freelancing with a group of other artists which included Dave Lindsay, Ted Lodigensky, Jim Jackson and Ted Paul. This group changed often through the years and I also was also associated with Charlie Schridde, Martin Anderson, George Francuch, Del Nichols, Jack Mills and John Asaro.
Often, there would be a design change, like new hubcaps or a new grill. And the art would have to be altered quickly. We had very tough deadlines to meet on most of the catalogs and ads. The automotive industry made Detroit a great place for commercial artists as there was an enormous amount of artwork that had to be done.
I was doing work for many different clients, realistic art, decorative art, cartoons, a real variety of assignments. Bob Witmer was our rep and he even was bringing in work from Chicago and Pittsburgh.
Around 1964 I decided to team up with Al Hutt Associates, a hot new art studio that had hired some great artists like Mark English, Don Silverstein, Ray Burdzinski and Bob Hohnstock.
I also was the Head of the Advertising Department at the Society of Arts and Crafts where I taught for four years. The school is now the College for Creative Studies. To show you how crazy the advertising business was in Detroit, I taught at the school full time during the day - that was morning classes everyday except Wednesday, which was a full day. It seemed that most of the assignments for the agency came in after 5 pm and I usually worked many nights. It was a bit tough to check and evaluate all of the students work. I think I had 48 students, but I managed. Only once did I miss a class because of business in four years.
The years 1969-1977
I started a company called ART & IDEAS in the late 1960’s and did a lot of freelance work out of Detroit, Chicago and New York. For a time I even had a rep in Toronto and got an occasional assignment from him.
One day I got a call from a local travel agency, Transcontinental Travel Bureau. The owner wanted to have a meeting with me regarding his newspaper ads. He had found me in the telephone book. I was listed as a commercial artist. Aouni Keilani was the owner and was quite an interesting person. He had big plans for expanding his business. He even talked about opening offices in Beruit and Cairo. I did many ads and brochures for him and he sent my wife and I on many trips to the Middle East. We even were in Luxor, Egypt when the Six Day War broke out. We ended up going back to Cairo. Then we were put on a bus which took us to Bengazi, Libya, which was kind of scary, as the U. S. had no diplomatic relations with them at the time. A U.S. diplomat arrived and arranged for us to be flown to Rome. It was quite an experience and I did a story on it for the Detroit Free Press which included illustrations.
These were all very interesting assignments and more fun than the rigid automotive work I had been used to, which, incidentally was drying up as photography was taking over.
Through the years I would be called in to work at McCann Erickson in New York by Bob Shepperly, the creative director. Bill Wallace, a Detroit designer, would design the ads and I would do the renderings. We worked as a team and often were there for a couple of weeks. We would also bring our wives so they could have a mini vacation in New York City. While I was there I heard that McCann’s Sao Paulo, Brazil office had an opening for an art director. My wife, Jeanne and I had been thinking about moving to a foreign country and this sounded perfect. I immediately applied for the job, some of the executives at McCann knew of my background as art director on the Chevrolet account at Campbell Ewald. However, I didn’t land the job, I believe Bill Gilmore, another art director from Detroit, got the job. At that point, my wife and I decided that we would move to Paris, France when our daughters went to college. In fact, Jeanne, who had never gone to college, decided that she would enroll at the American College in Paris and work for a degree in Fine Arts.
The years 1977-1983
In 1977 my wife and I moved to Paris, France, an exciting change in our lives. The illustration business was changing and the automotive assignments were becoming scarce. I decided that I would pursue a fine art career. We had no idea as to just what was ahead of us, and we didn’t know anyone in Paris. I thought that for a while I could do some commercial art to support us until I developed my fine art paintings. I got connected with a small advertising agency, Publiland, and did a lot of graphic design and some illustration work for them. I also was introduced to an art representative, Evelyn Manache. She decided to rep me. She was also repping Milton Glaser of New York. Evelyn got me quite a bit of work, but after a few months I decided to go on my own. I took my samples up to Lintas, one of the largest ad agencies in France. To my surprise, the Creative Director was Bob McClaren, someone that I had helped get a job at Campbell Ewald when I was working there twenty years ago. He was originally from England, then came to Detroit to work, and eventually went back to Europe. This was a real break for me as Bob gave me a lot of work. He even sent me to work in their Vienna offices and to Madrid, Jakarta and Singapore to teach their staffs how to render ads and storyboards. I did work for all of the major ad agencies in Paris but my main source of business was Impact FCB and Lintas.
I was taking French lessons while I was there, but language never was a problem at the ad agencies as they all wanted to practice their English. Jeanne spoke French. Her parents were French Canadian, but the French thought her accent was hilarious. She didn’t mind, as she still was able to communicate.
In 1983, after the Socialists were voted in, my tax situation became difficult. The government also wanted me to charge my clients TVA, an Added Value Tax, which was 17.6% then. Now it is over 20%. I would have been a bookkeeper for the government. Also, if a person bought a painting, they would be taxed on it every year, not just when they purchased it. This would really hurt the fine art market. We decided to leave and set up shop in New York. We both really loved our life in Paris and enjoyed traveling in Europe. When Jeanne’s class would take field trips to England, Italy and other places I would usually go along. We had a great time.
The years 1983-1993
In 1983 Jeanne and I moved back to the States, we moved to a Soho loft in Manhattan. The next few years were very productive both in the fine arts and commercial fields. Illustration was becoming less of an option, illustrators had to do storyboards and animatics to keep busy. There was plenty of storyboard work with Monday morning deadlines, which usually gave me the whole week to do paintings. I began working with my former rep, Randy Mulvey, his partner, Bill Neeley, had died in a tragic accident. When Randy passed away, I began working with another group called The Yellow Brick Road. After a few years I was repped by Dianne Boston of Way Art. They all had kept me quite busy. I still had a couple of Detroit clients which fed me work also. Finding an art gallery to exhibit your work in New York can be a real chore, most will not even look at your work. I knew several Argentine artists who liked my work and they recommended that their gallery, the Allen/Wincor Gallery, take me on. In January of 1985 they gave me my first one man show. Five paintings were sold, they were part of a series titled “New Landscapes”. After about a year the gallery owners had a dispute and the gallery closed. I was unable to get another gallery to take me on, the fine art business can be very difficult to get started in. I was convinced that when I decided to do paintings to exhibit in galleries that it would be a simple task to get established - not so.
I had an assignment from Detroit that took me out west on a photo shoot. The Wayne Alexander Company hired me to design the 1984 American Motors Renault catalog and we shot a lot of the photographs that were needed for it in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There are tons of art galleries in the area and I thought that I would do some western paintings when I got back to New York and see if I could get gallery representation in Santa Fe. After completing about twenty new paintings directed at the Santa Fe art market, I took them out there to present them to galleries. It was a disaster, I could not interest one gallery in representing my work - a great disappointment.
In 1990 I got another call from the Wayne Alexander Company to design and do art for all of the new Volkswagon catalogs, a great opportunity. There were several catalogs required and it was a large assignment with the usual tough deadline.
The years 1993 - 2003
Jeanne and I were getting restless and decided to leave New York. Jeanne actually never cared for the place after living in Paris, and I wasn’t having any luck connecting with another gallery. The ad business was also changing, although I had plenty of work in New York and was also getting assignments out of Chicago and Detroit. It just seemed as if we had hit a dead end in the fine arts area. We decided to move back to Michigan, in an area midway between Detroit and Chicago where we had our family. Sawyer is a small town located about twelve miles from the Indiana border and is near the town of New Buffalo. I hooked up with a rep in Chicago, Bob Fischer, an old friend from Detroit, who was able to dig up plenty of work for me. I also started to do a lot of work for McCann Erickson and Doner Advertising out of Detroit. Doner would actually call me in for a week or two at a time to render up ad comps and storyboards for their client meetings. Somehow I even managed to get assignments from ad agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco. I still had several clients in New York that used my services on a regular basis. Things were going well in the commercial business and I also managed to get a couple of galleries to represent my fine art paintings and prints.
I had no intention of buying a computer and how I happened to get involved with it is unusual. I used to send all of my New York assignments in packages by FedEx when I finished them. One day a package arrived late and another one was lost. My clients were furious and I had to do one of the jobs over very quickly. The other client actually cut my fee by $700 for being late, which I thought was pretty severe. One client told me I’d better get a computer if I wanted any more work. With the computer I would be able to send the finished work to my client over the internet. I quickly got a computer and everything was fine after that, no more lost packages. One day when I had some down time I began to experiment with the computer and was astonished at what could be done with this new medium. I’ve been hooked ever since. I have tried to render storyboards on the computer, but it takes me twice as long as it normally takes. I suppose that I just need a little more practice. I do many fine art projects and comic book cover parodies on the computer; it’s a fascinating new medium with great possibilities.
The years 2004 - Present
Since I quit doing storyboards I have kept very busy painting, sculpting and doing many experiments on the computer. As a lover of exploring and experimenting I find the computer to be an amazing medium. Also one can produce limited edition prints, posters and other self-promotion material on the computer. For my latest series of paintings, I first do a variety of color sketches on the computer, evaluate them, and then use one of the images as a basis for a new painting. It’s a terrific way to create interesting and different images.
I am a frustrated comic book artist, my high school art teacher, Margaret Stein, luckily steered me into advertising and fine art, but I have always been fascinated by comics and comic books.
My most recent digital work, Comic Book Cover Parodies. Both series will probably eventually be in book form.
I have been working on a series of new abstract figure paintings for the last year. These paintings are actually based on color sketches done on the computer. It is a totally new concept for how I work. I do several color sketches on the computer, then pick out the most interesting concept and use it to develop a large acrylic painting.
In this article I'd like to explain how I conceived and painted an illustration for a Paris based ad agency, M.A.O., Akjaly, Stollerman. This will give you an idea of the various stages an artist goes through when doing an illustration. The client was Sogitec Industries. Sogitec does work for French aircraft companies, oil refineries, the national railroad, the French space program and even the Louvre, producing training programs and storing information.
In order to show the great diversification of Sogitec Industries' work, we decided to do a kind of montage illustration that would allow us to show many things. I had no language barriers in the agency because one of the ad agency owners and Creative Director was Ray Stollerman, an American living in Paris. Stollerman had seen a brochure I once produced for Texstar Corporation and felt the design quality of those illustrations would also work well for this Sogitec ad.
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And that wraps up the biography and career retrospective of Harry Borgman. Once again I'd like to thank Harry for taking the time to put this together for us. It certainly was an honor to have him featured on Illustration Pages. I really hope you enjoyed this special series on artist, Harry Borgman.
