Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent is one of my favourite historical illustrators; here is a short bio on him.

Rockwell Kent was an American printmaker and illustrator born in 1882, and died in 1971. He was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent studied with several painters, such as Arthur Wesley Dow and William Merritt Chase. He also studied at the New York School of Art. Kent painted in addition to his illustration work. He did a series of paintings from a trip to Alaska in 1918; producing a memoir titled "Wilderness." He is well known for his illustrations of Moby Dick, published in 1930. Moby Dick contains black and white pen and ink drawings by Kent. It was very successful and sold out; Random House produced a trade edition. Kent illustrated many books over his career, including Beowulf, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and Faust by Goethe. He also designed murals, including one for the United States Post Office in Washington, DC. Kent worked in woodcut and lithography, as well as pen and ink. His drawings have a graphic look to them with large bold areas of black. He uses repeated small marks to describe backgrounds. Kent's signature style uses high contrasts of black and white.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_Kent