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Author of Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration, published by Princeton U Press 2026; professor, DIRA (Dowd Illustration Reseach Archive) @WashU
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#meganfoxkelly#artadvisor#artadvisory#historyofillustration#artinterpretation#illustration#illustrationart#illusdept#illusdeptpodcast#idpodcast
Recent posts
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-pictures-an-evening-with-d-b-dowd-tickets-1990804811783?aff=oddtdtcreator
Swann Galleries has an exhibition of choice works up in advance of the summer Illustration Art auction on June 18th. I will be talking about select pieces and my new illustration history text with Swann’s own Skye Lacerte.
Copies of Reading Pictures will be available for purchase, and I will do a signing after the talk.
14 Jun 2026
Michael Berry, Cannes. Circa 1950.
Swann Galleries, Auction June 18
14 Jun 2026
It was a dark and stormy night... Cover for Rebecca by H. Lawrence Hoffman, 1943.
Swann Galleries, auction on June 18.
14 Jun 2026
Swann Galleries has an exhibition of choice works up in advance of the summer Illustration Art auction on June 18th. Bradshaw Crandell, Beauty in feather hat, Cover art for Cosmopolitan, December 1939
14 Jun 2026
SWANN SALON | Skye Lacerte, Swann's Illustration Art specialist, is in conversation with D. B. Dowd to discuss his new publication, Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration.
Join us Tuesday, June 16, from 6-8 PM, ahead of the summer Illustration Art auction!
Conversation to begin at 6:30 PM.
Copies of Reading Pictures will be available for purchase, with a signing to follow after the talk.
RSVP at the link in our bio!
03 Jun 2026
“Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration” by D. B. Dowd presents illustration not as a secondary art form, but as one closely tied to how we read, interpret, and circulate information.
D. B. Dowd traces a broad history—from early woodcuts in China and Japan to the rise of print culture in Europe, and into today’s digital environments—showing how images have long worked alongside text to shape meaning.
The book is particularly focused on moments when illustration expands alongside shifts in technology and literacy: the growth of illustrated newspapers and periodicals, the impact of lithography and mass printing, and the integration of images into advertising and consumer culture.
It also places illustration within larger conversations around cultural memory, including how images participate in narratives of race, gender, and public knowledge.
_
Video courtesy of Princeton University Press
#MeganFoxKelly #ArtAdvisor #ArtAdvisory #HistoryOfIllustration #ArtInterpretation
@princetonupress @db_dowd
01 May 2026
A history of illustration from the beginning of popular print to the rise of mass literacy and into today’s age of digital media.
Reading Pictures by D. B. Dowd is out now! Order yours at the link in our bio.
Of all the visual arts, illustration shares a unique relationship with the written word, often serving to visualize, enhance, or respond to a text. Reading Pictures presents a global history of this versatile art form, linking its emergence to modern developments such as the illustrated news, recreational reading, and ad-driven consumer culture.
From the advent of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century to the modernist artistic and cultural movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, D. B. Dowd traces the development of illustration as an integral part of the reading experience. He examines the move from ancient scrolls to pamphlets and book forms, and a return to the scroll in electronic form on smartphones and tablets. His story begins with relief prints and woodcuts in ancient China and Japan before moving to printing and platemaking in early modern Europe. Dowd discusses how book and periodical publishing rose sharply with the innovations of wood engraving and lithography, leading to a boom in cultural literacy; and how the illustrated press reached its zenith between the 1860s and 1960s, as printed entertainment and the news of the world became commonplace in every household, bringing with them advertising, propaganda, and consumer culture.
Richly illustrated with more than four hundred images spanning the iconic to the unexpected, Reading Pictures reframes the story of illustration within the broader histories of race, gender, literacy, and the transmission of cultural memory. It reveals how reading and looking have become increasingly integrated, and that, as images have become ever more prevalent today with the digital revolution, what is meant by literacy has evolved.
21 Apr 2026
Every week, I share a chat with folks from illustration, design, publishing, animation, and other creative fields on The Illustration Department Podcast.
Episode 358 of The Illustration Department Podcast—with Michelle Komie, publisher at Princeton University Press, and DB Dowd, author and professor of design at Washington University—is now available!
They talk about illustration’s past; how they both approached the making of DB’s book, Reading Pictures; and more.
⚡️You can listen to it on your preferred podcast player, or by visiting illustrationdept.com/idpodcast.
⭐️ If you find value in this podcast, consider supporting it via Substack or Patreon.
* Patreon: For $1, $4, or $6 a month, you can listen to bonus podcast episodes, receive invitations to our quarterly “Art Director After Hours” series; and get a reusable 10%-off discount code for all ID offerings.
* Substack: For $5 a month, or $50 a year, you can read hundreds of articles I’ve written on illustration, listen to bonus podcast episodes, and join Substack’s community of illustrators.
Thank you for listening,
Giuseppe Castellano
~
#Illustration #Illustrationart #IllusDept #IllusDeptPodcast #IDPodcast #illustrationhistory #ArtHistory #CulturalHistory #Kidlit #Kidlitart #GiuseppeCastellano #ReadingPictures
21 Apr 2026
Haddon Sundblom is remembered as the illustrator who refurbished Father Christmas into Santa Claus with rosy cheeks to sell Coca-Cola, and for his pin up girls. A skilled paint handler, his work is typically reproduced to highlight his bravura style. Well here’s the underside of the canonical Sundblom: a Lost Cause celebration of Stonewall Jackson on the move with his Confederate army, enjoying a different take on Coke and “the pause that refreshes.” This ran on the inside front cover of Boys Life in 1931, roughly 70 years after the Civil War. Illustration is a more interesting subject when the stakes are higher than who-was-famous-for-making-cherished-pictures.
07 Apr 2026
A different perspective: a ledger drawing by a Kiowa artist, a medium that developed in/on traders’ ledger books in the later 19th century. After the great Native equestrian armies had been defeated, ledger drawings were sold and bartered by destitute Plains Indians. After 1860.
07 Apr 2026
Writing any book about a sprawling field poses challenges: among them, how do you balance between “canonical” people and works, and more interesting (to me) thematic storytelling? Chapter 9 in Reading Pictures explores how “history” has been invented, distorted, recovered, and booby-trapped by various actors. Here, a mural by Allen Tupper True in the Colorado State Capitol. True was a student of Pyle and did a lot of such work. This cycle is The History of Water in the West. The painted text below this panel (3 of 8) reads “Here shall the melting Snows renew the Oxen; here Firewood is and here shall Men build Cities.” A colorful rendering of Manifest Destiny. 1934-40.
07 Apr 2026
Deets about Left Bank event
07 Apr 2026
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