Coles Phillips ‘Fadeaway Girl’ Illustration “Butte Postcard

Clarence Coles Phillips was an American artist and illustrator known for his stylish images of women and his use of negative space in the paintings he created for advertisements and the covers of popular magazines. His creative use of this negative painting technique became popularized with his “Fadeaway Girls. In these paintings, the outline of the woman is revealed by the backgrounds against which she is placed. Many of the paintings feature a positive painting of the head, shoulders, arms, and feet, with negative painting of her clothing, creating a design with a figure whose clothing matched, and disappeared into the background. Working from life rather than photographs, Phillips frequently used his wife as a model for his popular covers and many advertising illustrations for consumer products of the 1920s. This illustration depicts a lovely young woman in a long white gown with purple mauve edging. In the background are tiny men depicted with butterfly nets chasing about willy nilly.