Phil Hays RIP

[Brownian Motion]

The New York Times

October 30, 2005

Phil Hays, Illustrator and Teacher, Is Dead at 74

By STEVEN HELLER

Phil Hays, an illustrator and teacher, whose lush watercolor portraits of legendary blues artists like Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday for LP covers defined a distinctive graphic style of album art in the 1970's, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 74.

Mr. Hays, who lived alone, was found in his apartment, said a friend, the illustrator James McMullan. The cause of death was not officially known, although he had been suffering from emphysema.

In the mid-1950's Mr. Hays was one of a young band of expressive and interpretative illustrators, including Robert Weaver, Jack Potter, Tom Allen and Robert Andrew Parker, who, rather than paint or draw literal scenes based entirely on an author's prose, interpreted texts with an eye toward expressive license. Mr. Hays said that representational illustration was an art of nuance, and his work routinely dug below the surface, drawing on Impressionist, Expressionist and Surrealist influences. In 1957, Mr. Hays was hired by Silas H. Rhodes, a founder of the School of Visual Arts in New York, to teach his first illustration class, and later he became chairman of the illustration department.

As a teacher he introduced novels, plays and films to students as a way to increase their visual and verbal literacy. "Phil's favorite expression is 'Why not?,' " wrote the poster artist Paul Davis, a former student of his, on the occasion of Mr. Hays's being awarded the Society of Illustrators 2000 Distinguished Educators in the Arts award. "He welcomes experimentation and innovation."

At the time Mr. Hays was not much older than his students, but he was already deep into a successful career. His editorial work appeared regularly in Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, McCall's and Esquire. One of his more notable advertising commissions was a very painterly-looking piece for Coca-Cola.

Philip Harrison Hays was born in Sherman, Tex., on March 14, 1931. In 1936 his family moved to Shreveport, La., where he went to school until joining the Air Force in 1950. In 1952 he enrolled at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and in 1955 he moved to New York and started a career as a freelance illustrator. His early watercolor approach, partly inspired by Vuillard, was often quite loose but also extremely detailed.

By the mid-1960's his approach to fiction in Esquire and visual reportage in Sports Illustrated "had become darker and more serious," Mr. McMullan noted.

He also found a new métier doing portraits of blues and rock 'n' roll musicians. His rendering of Bessie Smith for Columbia Records in the early 70's glows out of the darkness in what appears to be a drug haze, and his Jerry Lee Lewis looks to have stepped out of a seedy motel room. "It was no accident that his most memorable portraits were of performers that lent themselves to Phil's particular kind of visual decadent glamour," Mr. McMullan said.

In 1979 Mr. Hays moved back to California to become chairman of the illustration department at the Art Center College of Design. He retired in 2002.

He is survived by a brother, Richard, who lives in Tennessee.

[sheldonm]

...very sad to hear about this !!!

[Christiern]

Phil Hays's artwork enhanced the five Bessie Smith LP album series I produced for Columbia. He was a pleasure to work with and I am sad to see him leave us.

Edited October 30, 2005 by Christiern