It's clear from looking at my blog that I tend to like "classical" style illustrators: lots of realistic rendering and detail. So it's a surprise even to me that I like the late Ferenc Pinter's super-minimalist, super-designy illustrations so much.What moves me is the audacity of Pinter's postery compositions as well as his inventive color schemes. If he needed to model something realistically--a face, perhaps--he'd do it. The rest of the time he let shapes and pattern carry the story. The results were magical.
Born in Liguria and trained in Hungary, Pinter (1931-2008) fled the Hungarian Revolution and settled in Milan. After a while doing advertising and poster art, he connected with Mondadori, the giant publishing house, for whom he worked more than three decades. Among his most renowned works were covers for a series of crime paperbacks and, especially, for Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret novels.
I offer a smattering of his many covers. You'll find plenty more at his official website. Art dealer Claudia Salmin's Segni & Disegni seems to have had a connection with Pinter in his later years. They produced several prints by him, as well as offering some of his originals for sale. When you get to the site search "Pinter" and enjoy.
