Joe Ciardiello

Joe Ciardiello (born 1953) is an American illustrator. He works primarily in pen and ink on water color paper He has received awards from the Society of Illustrators. His father, Joseph A. Ciardiello was the youngest of four boys. He operated a dental practice in Staten Island, but also had a lifelong interest in drawing. Other instructors at Parsons included Bernie D'Andrea, Lorraine Fox and Maurice Sendak.

Illustration career Getting started Ciardiello's work first appeared in print in 1974 during his senior year in college, in Crawdaddy Magazine, whose offices were a few blocks from Parsons and which Rolling Stone credited with being the first serious journal dedicated to rock and roll. The illustration was a black and white depiction of Lenny Bruce. which lead to 23 illustrated volumes, including the first in the series T-BONE WALKER The Complete Capitol / Black & White Recordings (1995) and the last in that series, CAPITOL BLUES #23: VARIOUS ARTISTS Chicago Blues Masters Volume Three (1997).

In 1999, Ciardiello had a one-man exhibition of his works Portraits of Blues and Other Images at the Museum of American Illustration, which is housed by the Society of Illustrators, New York City.

In 2016, Ciardiello won the Hamilton King Award, which is the highest award the Society of Illustrators can bestow to a member. The award was presented on behalf of Ciardiello's work illustrating the book On The Snap by Brian Case.

In 2019, Fantagraphics published Ciardiello's A Fistful of Drawings, a collection produced over the previous five years inspired by Westerns.

Working process When doing portraiture Ciardiello will gather as many photographs of his subject as possible. After this, he either draws sketches on tracing paper, which he places on a light box where the drawing is transferred to paper; alternately he will frequently go directly to a finished drawing in pen and ink, without preliminary sketches.

Personal life Ciardiello lives in New Jersey with his wife artist Susan Blubaugh. He contributes original works for auction to support charities including the Drawing Dreams Foundation, The Printing Center of New Jersey and veterans charities.

Ciardiello plays drums with the bands Kane Trio and The Half-Tones. The Half-Tones is an all-illustrator band consisting of Barry Blitt, Richard A. Goldberg, Hal Mayforth, Robert Saunders, Michael Sloan, and James Steinberg.

Selected illustrations The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis, ESPN Reimagining the California Condor, Audubon Magazine Portrait of David Hockney, SIC Magazine (Silver Medal Society of Illustrators) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 24th Annual Induction (program cover) Portrait of Eric Clapton, Playboy Japan

Book illustration Brief Lives by John Aubrey, The Folio Society Like Jazz The Spanfeller Press, 1992 10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard, William Morrow 2007 The Devil's Sinkhole by Bill Wittliff, University of Texas Press, 2016 Black White & Blues, by Joe Ciardiello, Strike Three Press 2011 On The Snap by Brian Case, Caught by the River Press, 2015

Putnam Editions Theodore Roosevelt by Sibyl Hancock, 1978 The Great Houdini by Anne Edwards, 1977 Buffalo Bill by Eden Vale Stevens, 1976

Franklin Library Editions These books, re-published from the original texts, were illustrated by Ciardiello: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, 1979 Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates, 1980 Nostromo: a tale of the seaboard by Joseph Conrad, 1981

World's Best Reading Series, Reader's Digest, 1990-1999 These books, re-published from the original texts, were illustrated by Ciardiello and distributed by the publisher to a mail order book club: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain, 1984 Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne, 1988 Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1989 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Jules Verne, 1990 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. 1992 The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories, Mark Twain, 1992 Heart of the West, O. Henry, 1993 Bellefleur, Joyce Carol Oates