All Things Amazing: José Benlliure y Gil, ” La Barca De Caronte”

“José Benlliure y Gil (1858 – 1937), Spanish painter, was born at Valencia, studied painting under Domingo, and showed from the first such marked talent that he was sent to the Spanish school in Rome.” (wikipedia)

“When The New Yorker called last year, I was so surprised, I jumped up and hit my head (rather badly) on my desk lamp.” said Frank Viva. “Earth Day” (left) is available on newsstands this week. “It’s my second cover for The New Yorker and this time, I somehow managed to avoid serious injury. Us? We’re celebrating Earth Day on Thursday by taking our bikes to the office.” (source)

About Frank Viva:

“Frank Viva started out as an illustrator working for places like Time, Esquire, The New York Times and The Boston Globe. He later began a second career as a graphic designer. Nowadays, Frank lectures when asked (and sometimes when not), judges competitions, sits on two college advisory boards and writes a column in Applied Arts magazine. A past president of The Advertising & Design Club of Canada, he is passionate about cooking, wine and his daily bike ride to the office. His first children’s picture book will be published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.” (more)

See the same photo over at the Online Archive of California (host of the Dorothea Lange Collection, 1919-1965).

“Included in the museum’s archive are approximately 2,500 prints and over 2,000 negatives by Lange dated from 1935 to 1939 when she worked for the Resettlement Administration (RA) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA). […] In the summer of 1935, Lange transferred from SERA to the newly formed Resettlement Administration (RA), established in May 1935 by the executive order of Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his New Deal. The RA.s mandate was to ease the nation.s rural poverty through programs that included low-interest loans to farmers, land-renewal projects, and the resettlement and rehabilitation of the rural poor. Lange was hired as the only photographer investigator to work for the western regional office in Berkeley and on national assignments as designated. Concurrently, Taylor was appointed as a regional labor advisor in the same office. Together they were responsible for a five-state region including California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico , and Utah.” (more).

“Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange’s photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography.” (learn more about Dorothea Lange on Wikipedia).

About Samantha Loman:

“Sam or in case you are wondering her full name is Samantha Patricia Loman was born on August 7, 1983. She studied Illustration at the academy of arts in Rotterdam the Netherlands and received her Bachelor of Design in January 2005. A year before her graduation she started her own design business. First as an illustrator but soon she extended her creative skills with graphic design, photography, product design and writing children and non-fiction books.” (more)

About Roz Chast:

“Rosalind “Roz” Chast (born November 26, 1954) is an American cartoonist and a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker. She grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, the only child of an assistant principal and a high school teacher who subscribed to The New Yorker. Her earliest cartoons were published in Christopher Street and the The Village Voice. In 1978 The New Yorker accepted one of her cartoons and has since published more than 800. She also publishes cartoons in Scientific American and the Harvard Business Review. (wikipedia)