Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company of New York in 1964, was illustrated with 17 full page line drawings (including the frontispiece) by Eugene Karlin. It used FitzGerald’s first and fourth versions, and is Coumans #222 & Paas #1334–5 (1).
The illustrations appear to be mostly generic, having little if anything to do with any particular verse, on their facing page or otherwise. Thus four of the illustrations feature Omar with his Beloved. Figs.1a (p.41) & 1b (p.45) are two nice examples, and Fig.1c (p.17) shows Omar swigging wine from the bottle, which could relate to numerous verses. The Potter in Fig.1d (p.29) is a general nod towards the Kuza Nama and the Botticelli–like angel in Fig.1e (p.79) presumably relates to the “wingéd Angel” in verse 98 (fourth version), though there is no “unfolded Roll of Fate.” Karlin was one of those artists who involved topless or naked women in his illustrations – in eight of them to be precise -– an amusing example of which is shown in Fig.1f (p.9). I am tempted to see the rear–view nude at which Omar is fondly gazing as “the Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon” in verse 14 (first version), for which there is actually some evidence, as we shall see later! A similar illustration in which the nude woman appears to be pregnant appears on p.21! As for the topless woman in Fig.1g (p.35), only the turned down empty glass serves to link her with verse 75 (first version) on the facing page.
Some of Karlin’s illustrations, though, are strange to say the least. Fig.1h (p.25) seems to be of the Death and the Maiden variety (2a), the Maiden here trying to escape the clutches of Death and (perhaps) halt “the Moving Finger” of verse 51 (first version) on the opposite page. Compare Dürer’s “Young Woman attacked by Death” (or “The Ravisher”) of c.1495 (Fig.2a) and Holbein's “Death and the Duchess” of 1523–5 (Fig.2b). Fig.1i (p.61) is interesting as it is almost a direct copy of the figure of Death shown in a print by Alfred Rethel (2b) dating from 1851 (Fig.2c). Another seemingly irrelevant oddity is to be found in Fig.1j (p.65), which appears to show two dragons fighting, one with wings (Heaven ?) the other not (Earth ?), the battle taking place amid foliage or flames (2c). Quite what that signifies in terms of FitzGerald’s verses is anybody’s guess! Yet another oddity is shown in Fig.1k (p.75), which has the appearance of some images of the Green Man in English folklore (2d), more particularly the modern derivatives (Fig.2d). It also bears rough comparison with some of the heads by the 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, like his “Vertumnus” (Fig.2e) and, more particularly, “Flora” (Fig.2f). Make of these what you will.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Between 1961 and 1982 Karlin illustrated at least 16 books with his characteristic elegant fine–line drawings, the style of which varied little over this period. Thus Fig.3 is an example from The American Girl Book of First Date Stories (Random House, New York, 1961), illustrating the story “A Gift from Roger” (p.108), and Fig.4 is an example from Marianne Moore’s re–telling of Perrault’s fairy tales, Puss in Boots, the Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (Macmillan Co., New York, 1963), this showing Cinderella and her two wicked step–sisters (p.37), of course. Note the use of colour wash in this one. Karlin’s illustrations for this book earned him an Award for Excellence in the Society of Illustrators exhibition of 1963.
Following his Rubaiyat, in 1966 Karlin illustrated Harriet Eager Davis’s historical novel Elmira (subtitled “The Girl who loved Edgar Allan Poe”), published by Houghton Mifflin Co. of Boston. Fig.5 is a good example. It illustrates chapter 13 (p.107) and shows Elmira reading a letter from Poe concealed from her by her parents and husband.
Two years later, in 1968, he illustrated Plato: Lysis, or Friendship, The Symposium, Phaedrus, published by The Limited Editions Club of New York (and its associated Heritage Press.) Fig.6a faces p.42, Fig.6b faces p.58, Fig.6c faces p.106 and Fig.6d faces p.135.
Between 1977 and 1982 Karlin illustrated four titles for the Franklin Library of Pennsylvania, the most interesting of which is the first, Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil , a work which gives an artist plenty of scope for the imagination (and much room for nudes!) Fig.7a is the frontispiece of the book; Fig.7b (p.29) illustrates the poem “Giantess” (in which the poet fantasises that he has a giantess as a lover); Fig.7c (p.39) illustrates the poem “Her Hair”; Fig.7d (p.153) illustrates “The Little Old Women”; Fig.7e (p.165) illustrates “The Dance of Death”, with its companion piece, Fig.7f (p.228), the generic frontispiece to the section “Death.”
At this point we should mention Heart of a Man (subtitled “Men’s Stories for Women”) edited by Bill Amatneek and published, after Karlin’s death, by Vineyards Press, Sebastopol California, in 2021. The book had a curious origin twenty years earlier, in the March 2001 “Men’s Issue” of Storytelling Magazine, edited by Bill. This contained 11 stories, and that issue sold out so rapidly it had to be reprinted, the greatest demand, it turned out, coming from women! Heart of a Man was a resulting anthology of 39 stories, poems and quotes on the same theme by a range of male authors, As it happened, Bill Amatneek’s family were long–time friends of the Karlin family, plus Bill was a great fan of Eugene’s art work, and saw that many of his illustrations for various books and magazines also fitted nicely with the material in Heart of a Man. In other words, its illustrations were actually recycled to new ends from earlier works. Thus Fig.8a (p.45) is from Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil (cf. Fig.7c); Fig.8b (p.157) is from a magazine illustration for an article on adoption of children; and Fig.8c (p.243) is from Plato’s Lysis &c (cf. Fig.6a.) Incidentally, it is Figs.6a & 8c which rather support my interpretation of Fig.1f.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
From as early as the 1940s many commercial artists were in demand for the design of album covers, and Eugene Karlin was one such, working in this field between about 1955 and 1977 (3). Eight examples are given here, in chronological order: Fig.9a, Prokofieff’s “Romeo and Juliet”, dating from 1957; Fig.9b, Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”, dating from 1959; Fig.9c, Stravinsky’s “Petruschka”, dating from 1960; Fig.9d, “Hassidic Z’Miros”, dating from 1962; Fig.9e, Prokofieff’s “Symphony–Concerto for Cello and Orchestra”, dating from 1964; Fig.9f, Debussy’s “Chansons de Bilitis”, also dating from 1964; Fig.9g, Stravinsky’s “Orpheus” and “Apollo”, dating from 1965; and Fig.9h, “Stan Getz plays Bacharach and David”, dating from 1968. [Browse here.]
As can be seen, the first, third, fourth and fifth of these are in very different styles to Karlin’s book illustrations, that style appearing in the second, sixth, seventh and eighth, the last three of these in particular. The use of colour, of course, partly explains the difference in styles, but even so, one wonders why, when one looks at the coloured album covers, various twentieth century artistic “–isms” spring to mind: fauvism, cubism, expressionism and so on – absent from the line drawings. Could it be that having found a successful line drawing style for book illustration, he stuck to it, because that’s what publishers came to ask for ? At this point we need to look at our artist’s life and artistic influences (4).
Eugene Karlin appears to have been born Eugene Joseph Karlinsky in Kenosha, Wisconsin on 15 December 1918. The 1920 US Federal Census records him as Jo Karlinsky, the son of Russian–born Jews, Isadore Karlinksky, and his wife, Sara. By the time of the 1930 US Federal Census, the family had moved from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Chicago. They had changed their surname to Karlin, Jo had become Eugene, now aged 11, and he had two older brothers, Morris, aged 17, and Sam, aged 15, plus a younger sister, Charlotte, aged 9, and a younger brother, Philip, aged 6. His father, aged 41, was listed as a tailor by profession, and his mother was aged 40.
The following extract from the Joan Hess Michel article cited in note 4 is of interest at this point:
Since there were four other children in the Karlin family, money did not exist for such luxuries as art lessons. Fortunately, Mrs. Karlin recognized her son’s talent, and she deeply wanted him to have an opportunity to develop his gift, God–given to him alone in the family. Her devotion and determination helped to foster Eugene’s ability. One of his earliest recollections is of riding on the open–air trolley to attend free art courses at Jane Adams’ famed Hull House (5) in Chicago. For many years Mrs. Karlin faithfully accompanied her little Eugene, twice a week, to his art classes. While her young son painted and colored, absorbed in the world of imagination, Mrs. Karlin did her marketing in the open stalls on Maxwell Street, until it was time to call for him. Karlin continued to study art at Hull House for about ten years. He recalls traveling by himself when he was older and having to fight off the neighborhood bullies who tried to steal his three–cents carfare from his pockets. (p.51)
An article which appeared in The Kenosha News on 10 May 1938 (p.4), under the heading “Eugene Karlin, Former Kenoshan, Wins Art Award,” is well worth quoting here:
Of interest to his many friends here is the news that Eugene Karlin, son of Mr, and Mrs. Isadore Karlin, Chicago, former residents of Kenosha, has been awarded a scholarship with the American Student League Art school in New York City.
Young Karlin, who is now 19 years of age, was a former student at the Durkee school, and was singled out of thousands of contestants as a winner. Ten scholarships are awarded each year to a field of artists that is international in scope.
The article goes on:
Karlin began his art education at Hull House and successfully by merit of his work was awarded scholarships to the Art Institute in Chicago, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Harrison Commercial Art School and the Professional School of Art, of which he is now a student. He has won every scholarship competition in which he has ever entered, and is a graduate of Senn high school, where a special art program was arranged for him, and where he was also active in athletics.
Among his accomplishments, he is chairman of the Cartoonists Exhibit and is active in the Chicago Cartoonist Guild.
The Chicago Tribune on 14 March 1940 (p.17), in a column headed “Open Chicago Artist Show at Institute Today,” noted that, “The Clyde M. Carr prize of $100 went to ‘Landscape’ by Eugene Karlin.” In 1946, at the annual show of the Art Institute of Chicago, he was awarded the Flora Mayer Witkowsky prize of $100 for his painting “Man with a Flute” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 5 June 1946, p.4.) Numerous other prizes and awards were to follow. He gained Awards for Excellence from the Society of Illustrators in 1959, 1962, 1963 (as noted earlier) and 1964, for example, the Herald Tribune Children’s Book Award in 1961, and the Society of Publication Designers Annual Award in 1971.
As regards his career in the 1940s, a good summary is given in Karlin’s obituary in The Los Angeles Times, which appeared on 26 November 2003, p.34. After noting his above–mentioned training at Hull House, in Chicago, the obituary goes on:
Karlin began his career as a staff illustrator at Fortune in the 1940s. After establishing himself as a freelancer, he contributed pen–and–ink drawings and other graphic art to a variety of magazines, including the New Republic, Town & Country, Seventeen, Architectural Forum, Sports Illustrated and Playboy. He also illustrated books and album covers.
An illustration from an article on Cotton Mills published in Fortune in May 1944 (p.142) is shown in Fig.10a; one from an article on the effects of post–war rationing in Britain published in The New Republic on 24 May 1948 (p.12–3) in Fig.10b; an illustration which he did for a story published in the September 1958 issue of Playboy (p.58) in Fig.10c; and a cover which he did for the 28 September 1958 issue of Today’s Living in Fig.10d. Of particular interest here are three two–page spread adverts he did for three of the Dana Perfume Company’s products in 1966: “20 Carats” (Fig.11a), “Tabu” (Fig.11b) and “Ambush” (Fig.11c), for it is almost as if Omar’s beloved (or Baudelaire’s mistress) had modelled for them! These featured in several leading publications, including Vogue, The New Yorker and Harper’s Bazaar. (In the advert for Tabu, “the forbidden fragrance”, note the nod towards Eve with her Apple in the Garden of Eden.) Parallel to these we have an advert he did for “The Garden of Eaton’s Scented Papers” which appeared in the magazine Seventeen in 1969 (Fig.11d.) Much later than these, he did an interesting poster for the Jewish Music Season in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (8 February 1985, p.3), shown in Fig.12. Is this, plus the Hassidic music design of Fig.9d, a nod towards his Jewish ancestry ? [Browse here.]
In New York in 1943 Karlin married Evelyn Wolfe, some two years his junior. She was a modern dancer who taught dance classes and was a Professor of physical education at Queensborough Community College in New York, though she seems to have had inclinations towards social work. Possibly in connection with this, she was temporarily at Hull House in Chicago, where she met Eugene, who had returned there, this time to teach, in the early 1940s. As the Joan Hess Michel article cited in note 4 puts it:
When she returned to her home, Karlin found he was restless. He had liked living in New York, and now with the added impetus of romance, he was anxious to return. But he had no job, and little money. After much thought, he decided to invest in a round–trip bus ticket to New York to seek fortune and a bride.
Happily his mother interfered. “Eugene,” she said, “Just buy a one–way ticket to New York ... that way, you’ll have to make good. You won’t be able to come back.” Eugene heeded his mother’s wise advice, and with fifty dollars in his pocket, he arrived in New York. The next day he found a job as an errand boy for an advertising agency, with the impressive salary of fifteen dollars a week. He found living quarters in a loft on 19th Street, with no extra charge for the rats who chewed on the young artist’s drawings. (p.52)
Shortly after that, “with the impetuosity of youth” Karlin landed the above–mentioned job at Fortune magazine by the simple expedient of depositing his sketchbook with the art director’s secretary, and awaiting the result. He and Evelyn could then afford to get married. Joan Hess Michel goes on:
The young couple had a dream – when they had saved $1000 they would go to live and work in Mexico. Approximately one year after Karlin began work as a staff artist, the dream came true. Karlin resigned his position at Fortune, and they went off to Mexico, renting a house in Cuernavaca. Karlin painted, finding inspiration in the work of Orozco. They enjoyed their stay there, but economics interfered, for they ran out of money in eight months and were forced to return to the United States. (p.54)
They hitch–hiked to Los Angeles, but failing to find work there, they eventually returned to New York, where, to supplement the sporadic work as a free–lancer, Karlin resorted to that refuge of many an artist, teaching. In fact, over the years Karlin taught at several art schools, including the above–mentioned Hull House, the Parsons School of Design, the Pratt Institute, the Cooper Union Art School, the School of Visual Arts and the Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art. Incidentally, a brief advert for Karlin’s Rubaiyat which appeared in the North Carolina newspaper The Chapel Hill News (1 November 1964, p.11) mentions in passing that the artist was, at that time, a teacher at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
The necessity for a steady income was no doubt largely down to the fact that the Karlins went on to have two daughters, Lorie, born in 1947, and Nina, born in 1953, both of whom I was lucky enough to contact in working on this essay, for which they supplied much information.
So, from the mid–1940s through to the 1980s he was involved in a mixture of commercial art, album covers, book illustration, teaching, and, of course, painting to which we shall return in the next section. Notably, in 1977 Karlin was invited to deliver a series of lectures to art students in Japan, where there was considerable interest in his work. The result was the “Eugene Karlin Special Issue” of the magazine Vision, as referenced more fully in note 4. The photograph of Karlin and his wife Evelyn, shown in Fig.13, was taken on this trip.
From the mid–1980s onwards we hear little of him for the simple reason that he retired at that time, though he continued to paint, often in intense colours and in his favoured cubist style. He also experimented in ceramics and sculpture.
Eugene Karlin died in Laguna Woods, California, on 20 November 2003. His wife, Evelyn, survived him by only a few years, dying on 4 March 2007.
As regards his art work, the above–quoted obituary in The Los Angeles Times tells us that:
In addition to his pen and pencil sketches, Karlin created works in tempera and oil, pastels and ceramic. His works have been shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, the San Francisco Museum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Laguna Art Museum.
Of his painting, Joan Hess Michel writes:
His paintings are more abstract than his drawings, with a geometric feeling. He likes to achieve a depth and richness of color, which is obtained through an unusual procedure. Sometimes Karlin paints over a used canvas, allowing small areas of the former painting to show. He also employs the wax method: wax is applied over tempera and scraped away in certain areas. Ink lines may also be added for accent. The whole procedure results in a rich, dimensional texture. (p.72)
Unfortunately, aside from the paintings of José Clemente Orozco and the use of line by Michelangelo, Michel does not name any artists who particularly influenced Karlin, so let us take a look at some of his art work and see where that leads us (for sources, see note 6.)
Let us start with three black and white prints, Fig.14a titled “Factory Town” (1940), Fig.14b titled “Workers under Fascism” (1941) and Fig.14c titled “Night Shift” (1941). These are all signed and dated, but Fig.14d (“The Family”), attributed to Karlin and assigned a date of 1941, appears to be neither signed nor dated, though the signature and date have perhaps been lost in cropping. Clearly, though, it is a close relative of “Night Shift”. The perspective of the background scene of Fig.14a reminds me of de Chirico, whilst Fig.14b has a sort of cubist feel to it, and the heads in Figs.14c & 14d are vaguely reminiscent of some of those in the sinister works of Odilon Redon. All have curiously distorted human forms, more of which are to be found in colour – heads in Figs.15a, 15b, 15c & 15d; full bodies and nudes in Figs.16a, 16b, 16c, 16d, and with a return to black and white in Fig.16e – this last, perhaps, being Karlin’s unusual take on the three Graces! All of these are signed, but only Fig.15b has a known date, 1945. The square head of Fig.15a reminds me of that in Fig.14a, though the origins of both remain unclear; Figs.15b, 15c, 16a, 16b & 16c remind me of Picasso, who produced wide variety of distorted heads and bodies; Fig.15d is probably an unused design for a record cover, its intense almost Fauvist colouring being like that of Figs.9a & 9c; and Fig.16d remains a surrealistic oddity! Different again are the “Still Life With Bottle” in Fig.17a and the picture of a dog in Fig.17b, both in cubist style, the latter known to have been painted in Mexico in 1945. All in all, then, we have a wide variety of styles with a wide variety of possible influences in addition to those already mentioned (the Dance of Death, Orozco etc.). I asked Karlin’s daughters about his favourite artists, and not surprisingly Picasso was his favourite, but he was also much influenced by the art of the American Dust Bowl and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The latter presumably throws some light on Figs.14a, 14b, 14c and 14d.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
But to return to where we started, Fig.18 is an unsigned, undated, pen and ink poster but known to be by Karlin. But for what ? It is tempting to see Omar serenading his Beloved for once, rather than the other way around, but the style is different enough from his Rubaiyat illustrations to cast doubt on that. Its purpose remains a mystery.
Finally, the following quote from Joan Hess Michel’s article is interesting in respect of Karlin’s book illustrations:
Karlin’s illustrations are all the more remarkable because he does no preliminary sketching, no blocking out, no roughs or comps. He merely takes a clean sheet of paper and begins to draw what he sees in his mind, having first steeped himself in the action of the text. If the resultant drawing does not please him, he discards it and begins the whole scene once more. He may execute many drawings of the same scene, varying each only slightly – the angle of a head, the detail of a hand — until he is esthetically pleased. (p.73)
Michel cites The Rubaiyat as one of the books for which his style is perfectly suited, and tells us that, “Karlin chose the scenes which he believed to be representative. These are not real people, they are highly stylised representations, artfully simplified, yet full of rich detail.” I wish I could have asked a few questions about that!
I did ask Karlin’s daughters about whether The Rubaiyat held any particular significance for their father, and if they knew anything about how he came to illustrate it. Unfortunately they knew little, but they believed that he only became interested in The Rubaiyat after he had been commissioned to design the cover and illustrate it. (The cover design doubled up as the illustration on p.51.)
Note 1: For reprints in 1966 & 1968 see Coumans #222 (note) and Paas #1336 & 1337 respectively. For a Portuguese translation from Franz Toussaint by Manuel Bandeira published in Rio de Janeiro, and which uses Karlin’s illustrations, see Coumans # 727 (1986); also Coumans #748 (1965) for the Portuguese translation by Bandeira with a parallel Spanish translation of Toussaint by Homero Icaza Sanchez.)
Note 2a: The combination of Death and the Maiden probably arises from the Roman / Greek myth of Proserpine / Persephone and Pluto / Hades, in which the Maiden is abducted by Death and taken to the Underworld.
Note 2b: The Rethel print, titled “Der Tod als Erwürger” (Death the Strangler) was published in 1851 but dates back to 1831 and an outbreak of cholera in Paris that year, said to have started at a Masked Ball, hence Death is playing a ‘tune’ using two bones.
Note 2c: I wondered if this could be based on Chinese dragon–lore, but in Chinese art the dragons generally fight over a flaming pearl, signifying wisdom, power or immortality amongst other things, and there is no pearl in Karlin’s illustration. Chinese dragons can come with or without wings, depending on their intended symbolism.
Note 2d: The Green Man is symbol of rebirth and growth, derived from the rebirth and growth of vegetation in the spring. He is often depicted as a head surrounded by foliage, with foliage sprouting from his mouth, and occasionally from his nose & eyes. He is presumably of pagan origin, but common in medieval church carvings, and survives in modern folkloric & neo–pagan festivals (and pub signs!)
Note 3: A very useful site for Karlin’s designs for record covers can be found here: https://www.discogs.com/artist/3023135-Eugene-Karlin
Note 4: Though some details of Karlin’s life are available on the websites of various galleries and museums housing his work, there is not a lot. On paper, a useful article by Joan Hess Michel, “The Art of Eugene Karlin”, appeared in American Artist magazine (March 1966, p.50–54 & p.71–73.) Also, the magazine Vision issued a “Eugene Karlin Special Issue” in 1977. Published in Tokyo, with text in Japanese and English (mostly the former), it is unfortunately difficult to find a copy today. In English, a brief time–line of Karlin’s life & career is given on p.10–11 and the text of a lecture he gave on a visit to Japan on p.58–66. Mainly, though, the magazine is useful for the large number of illustrations it contains. My account here is based on these sources supplemented by information from ancestry sites and online newspaper archives, plus material provided by Karlin’s two daughters, Lorie and Nina.
Note 5: Hull House in Chicago was a settlement house founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. It was essentially a secular social centre offering free educational facilities and support to poorer families, particularly immigrants.
Note 6: Many of these illustrations are to be found in the magazine Vision, cited in note 4, as follows: Fig.11d on p.13; Fig.17b on p.16; Fig.14b & 15b on p.17; Fig.9c & 9e on p.21; Fig.16e on p.28; Fig.16b on p.41; Fig.10d on p.42; Fig.8b on p.43; Fig.15d on p.50; Fig.18 on p.56. (Many examples from the books illustrated by Karlin are also to be found in Visions, along with much other ephemeral material not used here.)
Figs.14a, 14b & 14c can be found online at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Fig.14d was listed for sale by Paramour Fine Arts of Franklin, Michigan in 2021.
Figs.15a, 15b, 15c, 15d, 16a, 16c, 16d, 16e, & 17a are all to be found (with others) online at: https://www.angelfire.com/space/eugenekarlin/
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My thanks are due particularly to Karlin’s daughters, Lorie & Nina, for information about their father, and to Bill Amatneek for some background to Heart of a Man. Also to Paramour Fine Arts & the Angelfire website acknowledged in note 6; the discogs site referenced in note 3; and to Emily Thompson of Almanac Supply Company for the use of Fig.2d. Finally, I must thank Sandra Mason and Joe Howard for proof–reading the article and for their various comments on Karlin’s work.
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