T206 Artists "How Many"?

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

Because there are so many different styles of art used in the T206 set we should be able to sort out how many artist where used.

Going by style, background, anatomy, shading. etc.. and a lot of hard work this should be figure out how many artists and which cards they designed.

Starting with artist "A" here are some of the cards I think he or she designed. I did not go through the whole set so you can add some images you think belong.

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Posted By: T206Collector

This is similar to a thread I started a few months back. I think it is obvious that more than one artist was used to create T206 cards and I think the best evidence for this is the different styles used to paint the two different Matty pitching poses. A close examination shows a real difference in style and profile emphasis.

Trying to line up the artist with the cards is going to prove difficult since these were lifted from photographs and so each artist was limited in his/her free expression. But I think looking to the clouds in the sky and the buildings in the background is probably a good idea. For example, the way the Reds players and the Cubs players were drawn makes me think that there were at least two different artists used there.

Neat thread and a good idea to try to line up the artist with the work of art. Good luck!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Printing T206's was a business, and a rather big one at that based on the tens of millions of cards that circulated. An operation that size doesn't employ one artist to draw 500+ different designs. It's likely there was a whole crew, with several head artists and perhaps a dozen or more staff artists. I'm sure there were a few thousand illustrations submitted within only a percentage of them accepted. This was a pretty big operation.

[BruceinGa]

I was wondering about this. Some cards just jump out at you while others don't look so good.
Was there ever a list of artists and which cards were done by them?

[T206Collector]

Kudos for bringing this thread back from the dead -- if only the artists themselves were so easily revived!

[Jobu]

I have wondered about this and when I last researched it (not extensively) I wasn't able to find anything about the artists. As far as I know, the closest we come to the artists is in the proofs, especially the type 1 proofs that have slightly different designs than the final product. The contrast between cards like Pat Moran and the WaJo portrait is so huge that they must have needed to cast a wide net for artists (or maybe ALC's boss gave his kid a summer job designing cards).

[BruceinGa]

Originally Posted by Jobu

maybe ALC's boss gave his kid a summer job designing cards).

That might explain it!

[Sean]

That would explain Shannon, Purtell, and a few others.