C. F. Payne, 2005
C.F. Payne: art under the circumstances by Brian M. Kane
C
hristopher Fox Payne, better known to the public simply as C.F. Payne, is every professional artist’s nightmare. Even though he just turned 50, if he were to quit painting today he would still be remembered as one of the greatest and most influential illustrators of his generation. Payne is passionate about art, friendly, affable, and easy to talk to; intelligent and highly creative; has the respect of both his fans and his peers; has a great love of baseball, music, and film; and he has always been one of the fastest artists working in the field. Payne’s client list is a virtual ‘who’s who’ of the publishing industry, consisting of Time, Esquire, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Penthouse, Worth, Boys’ Life, Forbes, Kiplinger, Money, MAD, The Dallas Times Herald, National Geographic, Der Spiegel, the U.S. Postal Service, and several children’s book publishers. His cover for AARP of Jack Nicholson last year graced the fronts of New York City Metro buses. Chris’ work has received recognition from Communication Arts, Step-By-Step, Print Magazine, How Magazine, the Society of Publication Designers, and the Society of Illustrators, which has awarded him both Gold and Silver medals, as well as the prestigious Hamilton King Award for 1995. Payne’s illustrations have been exhibited in many college and art school galleries as well as The National Portrait Gallery. He has participated in a show of illustration with five other illustrators at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, and a one-man show at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He was the president of the Art Directors Club of Cincinnati in 1996, and the chairman of the 38th Society of Illustrators Annual Competition. In 1999 he became part of the founding board for the first national Illustrators Conference in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. Chris is the chairman of the Museum Committee of the Society of Illustrators of New York, and serves on the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America—a nonprofit organization developed to educate illustrators about business, copyright, and licensing issues. He is also a founder of The Illustration Growers of America, a non-profit committee charged with the responsibilities of creating an ad campaign to promote commissioned illustration, giving individual illustrators a promotional voice to compete against stock art in the marketplace. (www.illustrationgrowers.org) While some artists keep their methods and techniques to themselves like secret ingredients in a special recipe, Payne demonstrates the subtle nuances of his craft willingly. He has taught at the Brookhaven Community College, Dallas, Texas; East Texas State University, Commerce, Texas; Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; The Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, Ohio; and summer graduate degree sessions at Syracuse University in New York. Recently Payne was named chair of the illustration department at The Columbus College of Art & Design, the school that he commutes to from his home in Cincinnati two-and-a-half hours away where he lives with his wife, Paula, and his sons, Trevor and Evan. Payne’s style transcends standard preconceptions of the traditional caricature. His portraits have a classical, painterly quality that lends a twisted believability to the realism of his subjects. These portrait chargés (charged or heightened portraits) are so realistic that they appear more true to the person’s features and personality than any photo could ever capture. Add to this Chris’ wit, creativity, and impeccable sense of design, and you get a work of art that almost breathes with a life of its own. Truly he is every professional artist’s nightmare. Thank God he can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound too!
Unpublished portrait of Andrew Wyeth. Private commission by the Wyeth family as a present for Andrew, 13 x 16.5 inches, mixed media
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