Bill Peckmann &Books &commercial animation &Illustration &SpornFilms 19 Jan 2012 06:11 am
Hilary Knight
- Bill Peckmann sent me a number of scans on Hilary Knight, the noted illustrator who had gained fame in illustrating the Eloise books authored by Kay Thompson. On receiving them I suddenly remembered that I had animated a commercial done in the style of Mr. Knight’s poster for the Broadway show, Meet Me In St. Louis.
I had completely forgotten about that job which we did back in 1989. We’d been employed by a South African art director of the Broadway show to do an Overture and an Entr’acte for the musical play. The Overture would play to a Currier & Ives type animation we produced, then the scrim would lift revealing the town. For the Entr’acte, we would end with a group of people ice skating on a pond. It would be lit from behind, and our drawing would turn to live action as the actors skated on a simulated pond on stage.
With the job came a 30 sec. spot animating the poster that Hilary Knight had illustrated. I can remember just about nothing about the spot. The entire job, spot, musical and the entire experience was a horrible one. The client was nasty and moody and continually changed his mind about what he wanted. He thought of himself as an auteur and kept pulling ideas out of his hat while we tried to fight the low budget and tight deadline.
The one positive memory was going to see the rough film projected on the Broadway stage. While waiting for them to find the projectionist, I noticed one older man sitting across from me in the theater. I walked over to him and asked if he was Hugh Martin. He was, and I told him how glad I was to meet him. We spoke for another couple of minutes until the theater went dark and projection started. Martin was the composer of the show; he’d written all those great, original songs for Judy Garland and the others in the movie. I was pleased to have recognized him and met him.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Hilary Knight, but I did have some of his original artwork in hand. He drew some models for us. They’re somewhere in our storage, and a quick search wasn’t able to turn up anything. Time is moving on, and I wish I had put more emphasis on preserving some of my art materials back when.
The parting note on that job was that they spelled my name incorrectly in the Playbill. How appropriate. They promised to correct it in future copies, but I didn’t even bother to see if they’d done the correction.
Here’s the material Bill Peckmann had sent me, starting with a comment from Bill:
- In 1999 a collection of four of Hilary Knight’s “Eloise” books was published. Aside from it having all those great books between two covers was the fact that it also had Hilary’s eight page autobiography in it! And here it is.
1The book cover
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on 19 Jan 2012 at 9:00 am 1.Stephen Macquignon said …
I had some stuff from “Meet me in St. Louis†I will look to see if it is still around it may have been damaged in a water leek apartment living go to love it
on 19 Jan 2012 at 10:42 am 2.Bill said …
Neat to find out that Hilary is the son of aviation illustrator Clayton knight.
on 19 Jan 2012 at 12:51 pm 3.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Fascinating! I have early editions of the first two books and wasn’t aware that there had been two more.
A little girl having the run of a first-rate hotel is a great idea for a story. I liked it so much that when I worked in Paris for a short time, and had the chance to stay at a venerable old hotel, I tried to take my eleven year old daughter with me. I’d have had to leave her alone for the afternoons in the hotel and environs, but I imagined she’d find it an adventure…like Eloise did.
Well, it never happened. My wife wisely refused. It’s a good thing she did. We live in a different world than Eloise did.
on 20 Jan 2012 at 2:13 am 4.Clay Kaytis said …
Hilary is my grandmother’s cousin (my first cousin twice removed) and the famous artist of my family. I don’t see much about him online so imagine my surprise when your post appeared. As you might guess, I was raised on his art and books and now have an extensive collection of his books that was handed down to me. I only first met him about ten or so years ago. Hilary is living in New York and still working. I recall a few years ago he illustrated a New Yorker (or was it Vanity Fair?) article about fashion week. Sorry I don’t have much to add as I haven’t stayed in close contact with him but I just had to post here for no other reason than to join the conversation on someone who greatly influenced my choice to take on an artistic career. Plus, I’m named after his father, so double bonus article!
on 20 Jan 2012 at 3:49 am 5.Michael said …
Thanks for the comment, Clay.
on 20 Jan 2012 at 11:41 am 6.David Nethery said …
Clay,
When we worked together way back when at Disney I did not know about your family connection to Hilary Knight. That’s very interesting. He is one of my favorite artists, and someone who also influenced me from my earliest years … my parents had all the Eloise books. Those and Walt Kelly’s Pogo books (another family favorite) were books that I pored over for hours.