Page:Some examples of the work of American designers.djvu/81

 HOWARD McCORMICK

Mr. McCormick is one of the few Ameri- can wood engravers of the first rank. As will be seen by our exliibit, the "Mexican Plowing," from his series of pictures of Mexico, the Century Magazine has not hesitated to place his work with that of Timothy Cole in its somewhat exclusive pages. The McCormick compositions are all decorative in the broader sense — one does not have to draw patterns to be decorative — and his lettering is interesting and vigorous, even if every character is not absolutely classic from the point of view of the type designer. It is picturesque and colorful and he does not want to draw letters like a type designer.

A man who gets color into black lettering can easily put this quality into the pictorial part of his design and the "Mexican Plowing" is an excellent example of a black and white com- position which is full of color. The ability to do this comes naturally, as Mr. McCormick is an accomplished painter. He has been engaged for a long time on wall paintings at the Ameri- can Museum of Natural History, New York, and has executed some important private commissions. His most important wood block is a head of Lincoln, after a bust by Gutzon Borglum. Although most often engaged in work for the magazines, the Century, Collier's, Everybody's, the Delineator, he has worked commercially for the J. Walter Thompson Agency, New York, the Munder-ThompsonCo., Baltimore, the Japan Paper Com- pany, New York, and the Herald Press, Montreal. He was born in the middle west (Indiana), and usually spends his summers in the far west (Arizona), studying Indians and Indian life.