Rex Barron - Biography

Biography

Born in New Jersey in 1951, Rex studied art and animation at UCLA, eventually earning a B.A. in 1975. Two years of further training in illustration and fine art at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. led to eleven years of employment in the animation studios of Los Angeles, including Ralph Bakshi Productions, Hanna-Barbera, and Filmation Associates. He worked on film and television projects including The Lord of the Rings (1979 version), Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and The Pink Panther.

The almost simultaneous passing of his father and the closing of Filmation studio in 1989 led to a decision to relocate to Albuquerque and a twelve year association with the publisher G.P.Putnam’s Sons in New York, for whom he illustrated seven and wrote two children’s picture books. During this time, he also made hundreds of presentations to elementary schools about the book illustration process, both in the states and in Europe, where he twice was a guest of the Department of Defense Dependants (DODDS) schools. Eggbert, the Slightly Cracked Egg (Tom Ross, author) is now considered a classic, has sold well over 100,000 copies, and has been in print since 1994. The Big Bug Ball (Dee Lillegard, author) was picked by the International Reading Association as a “children’s book choice” for 1999, and the art for The Wild Bunch (Dee Lillegard, author) was featured in the Society of Illustrators “Originals” show. From 2004-9 Rex did copious illustration work for The Alibi, including many covers and almost weekly black and white interior spots.

For the last fifteen years he has concentrated on his own work and has also been involved with several local civic art groups, including being president of the Rio Grande Art Association, The New Mexico Watercolor Society, and the then local chapter of the Colored Pencil Society of America. He was designated a “Local Treasure” in 2018.

 

Artist Statement

Even in a digital age of complete data and visual information overload, it is still possible to feel the call of the ancient cave-painter. Some of us still stand, crude drawing tool in hand, and try to make meaning by making marks on a wall. Add to that archetypal drive one’s unique childhood cultural experience, and worthwhile things can happen. I was very much a product of the American suburban middle class of the 1950s and 60s and grew up fascinated by American animation. I spent many hours copying the characters from the Flintstones and various comic books, along with some Old Master drawings.

The Art Center College of Design’s curriculum in the 1970s still included a heavy dose of actual drawing, often from the model. The “Old Master Draughtsman” tradition that had long included great teachers like Lorser Feitelson, Harry Carmean, and Vernon Wilson was fading, but I was fortunate to be there at the end. To this day, I feel it is so important to have good drawing basics. It will add something vital, even when working with computers.

The true challenge for a representational figurative painter is to use the visual tools one has absorbed to come up with a composition that will function as a visual poem. That is, a distillation of aspects of one’s own time that touches on both the human and the eternal, and that compels sustained viewer interest. It is a challenge that I have come close to meeting only a few times.