About
Kevin Sprouls introduced the hallmark portrait style to the Wall Street Journal in 1979. Between 1979 and 1987, Kevin worked on staff for the paper, creating illustrations and training artists in the style. At the time of his departure from the daily activity of helping put out the paper, he was Assistant Art Director in charge of the in-house artists, which numbered 4-5 staff artists, and 2-3 part-timers.
He has been quite active in the freelance illustration sphere since then, contributing to advertising, publishing, editorial and corporate projects. His style is notable for its high level of detail and traditional, engraving like effect.
After art school, I was hired as a freelance graphic design novice, at Dow Jones & Co., parent company of the Wall Street Journal (thanks to a friend from school who recommended me). I spent 2 years doing that, and in the process got to know some of the newspaper people at the journal.
– Read More in an Illustrator’s Evolution .
Sprouls’ work has been featured in the Smithsonian magazine, a web exhibit of the National Portrait Gallery, He was a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine and for several years the principal portrait artist for Worth Magazine. Kevin’s work has appeared in various ad campaigns for American Airlines, Bell Canada, Concord Watch Company, Brooks Brothers, and Thermador. His work has appeared in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Fortune, Forbes, Runner’s World, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Time, Men’s Health, Euroman, and Esquire magazines. Book projects include the Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures and The Art of Demotivation, among others
His pen is housed in the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Kevin Sprouls is married with 2 children, and lives in the bucolic foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in North Carolina.