Ken Fallin (born November 11, 1948, in Jacksonville, Florida) is an American illustrator and caricaturist.[1] His first big break was in 1983 doing the posters and advertising for the popular satirical revue Forbidden Broadway. In 1987, he was commissioned by the Boston Herald to do a celebrity caricature every week in the Sunday theatre section.
On November 11, 1948, Kenneth Aubrey Fallin was born to Velma and Aubrey Fallin. His mother taught elementary school and worked with special needs students. His father Aubrey enlisted as a Marine in World War II and fought on Iwo Jima; his later career was in veterinary medicine.
Wanting to become an actor, Fallin moved to New York City, where he approached the writer of Forbidden Broadway about ideas for the show.[7] From that initial meeting, Fallin's involvement with the show and the design of its poster art would last over twenty years.
Forbidden Broadway is a show that satirizesmusical theatre, and caricaturist Al Hirschfeld’s work defined that genre early on. The producers of the show wanted Fallin's posters to resemble Hirschfeld's style to spoof his famous pen and ink drawings.
The show's success meant Fallin's work was shown in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Sydney. In 2009, Fallin completed work on the third London revival of "Forbidden Broadway", as well as illustrations for a new book on the lyrics from the show.[8]
Broadwayworld.com announced in September 2009 that Fallin would contribute to the site a sketch of a musical theater star each week.[10]
As of 2014, Fallin had contributed the artwork for eight of the twelve Forbidden Broadway compact disc covers.
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In 1994 Fallin began doing illustrations of sports figures for the Wall Street Journal, which led to him doing the 1994 Winter Olympics for the paper. He was subsequently asked to submit caricatures for the lifestyle and business sections. After he submitted an unsolicited portrait of the recently deceased Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., he began work drawing famous citizens for their obituaries.
Fallin was first hired by American Express to sketch all of the company's vice presidents, which were to be projected behind them at a corporate banquet.[7] The relationship with the credit card company continued when in 1990 they commissioned Fallin for several nationwide print ad campaigns in the United States. One included Amex's salute to famous restaurants and chefs, whom he illustrated. For another corporate client, he turned the Playboy bunny, Quentin Tarantino, and the U.S. World Poker Tour champions into bottles of Belvedere Vodka. Other corporate work has included Hong Kong Disneyland[11] and BMG Records.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Ken_Fallin, and is written by contributors.
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