User:NYC Walker/sandbox

=Richard Welling=

Richard Welling was a noted Connecticut artist. He was born and raised in the Hartford area and lived in Hartford for much of his life. He attended the Yale School of Fine Art before enlisting in the Army to serve in World War II. After discharge in August 1946, he entered Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1949.

Advertising Design
Returning to Connecticut after graduation, Welling worked for seven years in advertising design in Hartford. A strong desire to be more involved in the design process motivated him to go intbusiness for himself in 1957. As a commercial artist, he created designs for brochures and promotional materials for many clients, including insurance companies and technical industries. Clients included Connecticut General Insurance, Aetna Fire Insurance, United Aircraft Company, Scovill Brass, and Grey Manufacturing Company, among others. For United Aircraft he created brochures about liquid hydrogen rocket engines and solid fuel rocket cases. Submitting his work to design competitions, Welling received certificates for creative use of paper from Art Direction magazine for the brochures for United Aircraft. In his diaries he expressed his intention to create modern and visually arresting designs. Over time, he was able to choose clients who responded to his design sensibility and high standards. With photographer Edward Saxe, Welling designed a cover for Art Direction magazine, the foremost advertising design magazine. The design was a complex photographic concept,including a quote on the human mind. The cover was accepted and printed by Art Direction in the fall of 1962. Welling had a life-long interest in the science of vision, the perception of color, and effects such as optical illusions. Early in his career he created an exhibit on color and optical illusions for display in the lobby of the Hartford National Bank. His own colorblindness was a great concern for him and would affect his decision to work mainly in black and white.