In 1953, with 10 years of making a good living as a comic book artist, but frustrated by his lack of real improvement, Leonard Starr was advised by Dean Cornwell to return to art school and take night courses at the Art Students' League under the legendary Frank Reilly, the principal life drawing instructor at the school when George Bridgeman retired and a Cornwell-from-Dunn-from-Pyle disciple. Reilly was a major factor in producing a horde of great illustrators, among the better known Cooper Studio Girl Art pros Joseph Bowler and Ernest Chiriaka and many superb cover artists of the Trash Paperback era the likes of Robert Mcguire, Walter Popp, James Bama, Stan Borack, Lou Marchetti, Rudy Nappi, and Vern Tossey.
If Starr has frequently dismissed his early art education as worthless for 30 years, he is equally adamant that Reilly, who died in 1967, was the best teacher he ever had, claiming "He [Reilly] gave you the meat and potatoes, and there wasn't a single day that I didn't learn at least 10 things. I had gaps in my knowledge, and during 6 months of evening study with him, the gaps began to fill up."
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