John Ennis (artist)

Background

He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and studied painting at the Art Students League of New York under Jack Faragasso and Robert Emil Shulz and privately with Michael Aviano, all former students of Frank J. Reilly.[1]

Life and work

Establishing a career in the 1980s as a freelance book cover illustrator, John Ennis illustrated for American publishers including Random House and its subsidiaries, Ballantine Books, Bantam Books, and Dell Books. Also other American publishers including Kensington Books, Dorchester Publishing, Berkley Books, Harper Collins, Penguin Books, New American Library, Pocket Books and Canadian publisher Harlequin Enterprises. Trained as an oil painter, Ennis used this medium for illustration until the mid-1990s. He helped pioneer digital illustration by introducing it to the book publishing industry as an illustration medium. In 1997 he authored the book Going Digital, An Artist's Guide to Computer Illustration published by Madison Square Press. In the same year he served on the faculty of the Macworld Expo in Boston. He was interviewed for an article in Newsweek magazine for the article "Throw Out The Brushes". Ennis left illustration in 2002 and became a fine artist. He abandoned the digital medium and returned to oil painting. The Portrait Society of America awarded Ennis a Certificate of Merit in 2003, and an Honors Award in 2004 for a portrait of his son Kyle. He has since painted several hundred private and institutional portraits and has won numerous national awards. His portrait subjects include Nobel Laureate Susumu Tonegawa, notable corporate leaders Al McNeill of Turner Corporation, and John Bryson of Southern California Edison, the first woman headmaster of Boston Latin School, Cornelia Kelley, and the first African American Dean of University of South Carolina Law School, Burnele Powell.

Awards