Though his greatest career success was in illustrating over 200 covers for Time magazine, the imposingly named Boris Artzybasheff’s (1899-1965) greatest artworks were, in this scribe’s opinion, his surreal, cartoonish, and utterly wild drawings of anthropomorphic machines, crafted as if to answer a question nobody asked, but should have—what if Basil Wolverton had been an industrial designer? In a unique self-contained dream logic, his tools of industry sprout limbs with which to operate themselves.

I was turned on to Artzybasheff several years ago when a friend gifted me a copy of the October 1954 issue of Mechanix Illustrated—I was amassing a trove of old pop-science digests from which I was harvesting graphics for concert fliers and posters. Despite the “story” on Artzybasheff being literally nothing more than a two-page spread that featured all of five illustrations, he was nevertheless the cover feature. The publication’s covers were typically far more prosaic, I’m guessing the rag’s honchos probably relished this rare opportunity for some fun.  The entire article was two short paragraphs:

The transformation of harsh, cold machines into alert-looking, hard-working gremlins with faces, hands and feet is the unique achievement of cartoonist Boris Artzybasheff. His “living” mechanical monsters have created a sensation in the field of technical advertising.

It is not difficult to analyze the success of the animated machines. They convert a highly-specialized subject into one that everyone can understand and enjoy. This helps to sell a product and a company name. What more could an advertiser want?

A monograph of Artzybasheff’s fantasy work which featured his writings, As I See, was published in 1954, and reprinted in 2008.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
You’ll Die Laughing: MAD artist Jack Davis’ wonderfully funny horror trading cards