The Phoenix Art Museum is celebrating the legacy of legendary fashion illustrators Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos by showing 12 never before seen large-scale drawings
The multimedia exhibit features 100 artistic, editorial and commercial works of the fashioning design due who were prolific from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Throughout three decades, eccentric artist Lopez and his creative partner, Ramos worked with big names like Karl Lagerfeld, Jerry Hall, Bill Cunningham and Grace Jones among other celebrities and they created campaigns for retailers and designers such as Bloomingdale’s, Oscar De La Renta, Gianni Versace and Missoni.
Both creatives died of AIDS–Lopez in 1987 and Ramos in 1995. As the years passed their influence faded from the public consciousness.
But Dennita Sewell, a former fashion curation for the Phoenix Art Museum, remembers perfectly the day she laid eyes on the cover of “Antonio’s Tales from the Thousand and One Nights,” a collection of the duo’s works in a bookstore in 1985.
“I felt I found the people that I wanted to be with, the people that I wanted to know… as a young person looking through the pages of that book, a whole new idea of what was out there opened”, said Sewell at the opening of the exhibition.
Sewell was the one who chose the drawings from Antonio Lopez’s archive while curating the exhibition.
“I just knew immediately that those drawings would fill and come down the landing spot in our gallery,” said Sewell.
Artist Paul Caranicas, who was Juan Ramos’s partner of 24 years and a close friend of Antonio Lopez, said in a Q&A that the two men were hired by Vogue to sketch trends for employees and buyers.
During some two to three week seminars the two artist used to work with a live model who wore the latest fashions. Lopez would start the drawing and Ramos would fill it in with color, he said.
Today their names mean little to the public, the memory of once-influential artists has faded.
Loretta Tedeschi-Cuoco, a prominent fashion illustrator was fascinated by the revolutionary works of Antonio Lopez. She was drawn to his vibrant colors and composition, which stood out from the black and white world of commercial advertising in the newspapers.
When she was a teacher at Parsons School of Design in New York City she got to meet her idol at an art gallery in the West Village where he was presenting a unique show.
“Oh my goodness, it was insane. He was bombarded by students. Everybody wanted his autograph and to get up close. He was just signing his signature as fast as he could,” said Tedeschi-Cuoco.
But the hand-drawn illustrations of Lopez’s time, has been replaced by digitization.
“Sometimes when I see some of the digital work it looks very flat to me,” said Tedeschi-Cuoco. “You don’t want the things to look like cookie-cutter, where every illustration is the same.”
Caranicas also mentioned a lack of watercolor in illustrations now a days.
If you go to Parsons (School of Design), where I draw on the weekends,” he said.“They don’t even have water for you to give to watercolor. Watercolor is not done anymore; it’s a lost art.”
Kathie May, the president of Board of Directors of Arizona Costume Institute, which regularly collaborates with PAM on fashion exhibitions, aims to educate people about fashion and reach out to the broader public.
“I wanted to reach out to a larger community. I wanted to reach out to a larger demographic. I really want to bring out the idea that fashion is art,” said May about the workshop.
At the workshop on Oct. 5, Tedeschi-Cuoco, who is now based in Mesa, taught fashion illustration in the same way Antonio Lopez created his masterpieces – with a live model present and few costume changes.
Contact the reporter at iprysyaz@asu.edu.
