Ken Fallin
Ken Fallin is an American illustrator and caricaturist. 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.
Fallin has illustrated roughly 500 notable people for the Wall Street Journal, including President Barack Obama, Paul Newman and Tim Russert for Peggy Noonan's memorial of the newsman in the paper.
His Forbidden Broadway posters promoted the show in London, Tokyo and Sydney.
Outside of entertainment, Fallin developed relationships with corporate clientele, particularly American Express, which engaged him on several national media campaigns as well as private work. Belvedere Vodka hired him to turn famous icons like the Playboy Bunny and Quentin Tarantino into bottles of the alcohol. Other clients have included HBO, Showtime and Walt Disney Productions.
Background
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.Fallin attended Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville and graduated from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974.
Wanting to become an actor, Fallin moved to New York City, where he approached the writer of Forbidden Broadway about ideas for the show. From that initial meeting, Fallin's involvement with the show and the design of its poster art would last over twenty years.
He attended the Art Institute of Boston and Parsons School of Design, and studied drawing under famed cartoonist Mort Gerberg. He currently lives in New York City.
Career
Fallin's career has spanned work in advertising, Broadway theatre, network television and, most notably, in print for publications such as InStyle and the Wall Street Journal. He considers legendary caricaturist Al Hirschfeld as a major influence, and mimicked his style early in his career for the Forbidden Broadway work. Other influences include the German "degenerate" portrait artists of the 1920s, Aubrey Beardsley, Frank Gehry, Eero Saarinen, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Dame Edna Everage.Broadway
Forbidden Broadway is a show that satirizes musical 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.
In 2006, Fallin presented Tony Award–winning costume designer Alvin Colt with a portrait on his 90th birthday.
Broadwayworld.com announced in September 2009 that Fallin would contribute to the site a sketch of a musical theater star each week.
As of 2014, Fallin had contributed the artwork for eight of the twelve Forbidden Broadway compact disc covers.