ARTHUR SHILSTONE Arthur Shilstone was born in 1922 in Essex County, New Jersey. His father was a businessman in Wall Street and, after the Great Crash of the stock market, moved his family to Lake Mahopac in New York State. This moved served as the impetus for Shilstone’s life-long interest in hunting and fishing. During his high school years, Shilstone was encouraged by an art teacher to consider a career in the art field. Following his graduation from high school, he enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, an education that was cut short with the onset of World War II. Shilstone served in the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion in Normandy, and while there, continued his pursuit of art by sketching. At the end of the war, Shilstone returned to Pratt, and completed his education. He did additional study at the New School for Social Research. New York City, and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. After graduation he pursued a career in illustration in New York City, where he was eventually discovered by Life Magazine, with whom he worked for ten years. Shilstone’s work has appeared in over 30 magazines, including Smithsonian, National Geographic, Life, Gourmet, Sports Illustrated, Military History Quarterly, and the New York Times Magazine. It has also been featured in ads by national advertising agencies, as well as book jackets and interior illustrations for leading publishers. His work has been published in: Flashes in the River, The Flyfishing Images of Arthur Shilstone and Ed Gray. His assignments for major United States corporations include paintings and drawings used in annual reports and for special projects for U.S. Steel, Exxon, AT&T, Freeport Mineral Co., AMAX, IBM, Anaconda, St. Joseph Lead Mining Co., Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., and Western Electric. His military and governmental projects have included work for NASA (seven on-site assignments of the Space Shuttle, including pictorial coverage of blast offs and landings), the National Parks Service, Military Air Transport, and the Marine Corps. His collections include: NASA Air & Space Museum, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Museum of American Illustration, Collection of the Archives of the City of Quebec, Canada, and the Sanford Low Collection of American Illustration at the New Britain Museum of American Art. Arthur Shilstone is a member of the Watercolor Society and lives with his wife, Beatrice, in Connecticut in the Saugatuck River Valley. |
Russell Fink Gallery |