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Among Reilly’s favorite illustration assignments were: Pennsylvania Railroad, Continental Distilling Corporation, and Philadelphia Whiskey. In these, Reilly was able to employ extensive research in making an historically accurate picture.

He often accepted work that other illustrators weren’t able to complete, as he did with friend and neighbor Dean Cornwell (Reilly and Cornwell lived in the same apartment building). Reilly also enjoyed the challenge and prestige of painting murals. He came from the school of Realists who had been rejected in the world of fine art in lieu of Impressionism and Abstraction. In designing and painting murals for the Bronx High School of Science in New York, the Johnson City Courthouse in Tennessee, and teaching mural painting at the National Academy of Design, Reilly had the freedom to explore all of his creative and technical abilities, including his fine art background.

In addition to making pictures, teaching, and lecturing, Reilly wrote a weekly column for the Newhouse Syndicate titled, “Art for Your Sake,” was the Art Critic for the Art Colony of Woodstock (The Woodstock Townsman), and prepared four books for publication (Light and Shade; Figure Painting; Landscape Painting; Figure Drawing), though these were never produced.

Reilly also taught at the Grand Central School of Art with his former teacher Frank Vincent DuMond, Illustration at the Pratt Institute, The Moore Institute in Pennsylvania, The American School of Art in New York, and founded the Frank Reilly School of Art. This relentless dedication to teaching was the culmination of everything he had learned and observed throughout his years.

The Palette
Frank Reilly is the architect of how art is basically taught and learned throughout the world today. He incorporated a systematic structure and order to producing art. He took all of the elements of information and detail of what he had observed and “charted” them with the consistency and logic of a mathematical formula (while a student of DuMond, Reilly charted his teachers brush strokes, noting their relationships). Beginning with the Frank J. Reilly palette (ca 1933), which was based on the theories of Albert H. Munsell, Reilly began to create “formulas” for success.

This palette, consisting largely of fleshtones, was arranged by value rather than hue. It consisted of nine equidistant values of neutral gray mixed at the top of a glass palette. Below that row were 9 equidistant values of YR in the same order (cadmium orange out of the tube, being V7), reduced in value by adding burnt umber, white being added to create values 8 and 9. Below the YR came red in the same order (cadmium red light out of the tube, being V5). The final row showed the actual fleshtones used for painting. Again, they consisted of 9 equidistant values of the same hue. In this case, each hue was created by adding the same value red-orange-gray in various proportions depending on things such as complexion, light source, and time or type of day. If the subject was ruddy complected, more red could be added to the base mixture of the red-orange-gray. This base fleshtone is reduced in chroma and has the appearance of make-up or rouge. It is used in blocking in the mass shapes for a portrait or figure painting. Where purer color is required, as in a rosy cheek for a portrait or in the middle tones where it is more appropriate (high light and shade reduce color chromatically), one only needed to identify the correct value to be painted, then locate the desired hue and chroma on the palette. This was employing the Munsell system to it’s fullest potential. It gave artists more flexibility and control of their palettes and ultimately the quality of their work.

Reilly produced numerous teaching aids, including hue, value, and chroma charts and formula graphs detailing how various colors reacted under various conditions. He charted every visible color in the spectrum and calculated how specific values of light and color shifted under every conceivable light situation. For example, white under normal daylight conditions appears as white. Under moonlight, however, white appears as a seventh-value gray.

Reilly was teaching his students to be efficient as well as proficient. His approach to producing a sketch from life might go as follows. Locate the Spatial Relationships: “the big shape,” line 1 and 2, plumbing (horizontals and verticals), parallels, and negative shapes. Simplify with Rhythmical Relationships: long lines, rhythms, abstractions, and patterns of light and dark. Focus on Anatomical Relationships: drawing through, construction, the mannequin, and anatomy. He suggested drawing the “known” first, and working from the large to the small, from the simple to the complex.

Illustration assignments that required painstaking research were approached through various working thumbnails and studies. Photographs of models and reference material was then shot. He began a “working drawing” from which black & white and color sketches would be created. The elements of composition and draughtsmanship were finalized with a master tracing.

To recreate the spontaneity and tight composition of the thumbnails, Reilly then projected the master tracing onto a strung, but unstretched canvas, and drew the image onto the canvas with a sable brush and India ink. For a painting produced from life, he would “tone” the canvas with raw umber by dipping a rag into the paint and rubbing it into the canvas. This created an overall middle value that helped him locate and relate all of the values within his subject.

At this point in either approach, the procedure was similar. The initial masses and passages were applied thin with a mixture of paint and turpentine. Locating the darkest darks, he began to identify relationships of value. He occasionally used oil of cloves to keep the paint “wet” and cobalt dryer to accelerate the painting process, but generally didn’t recommend using mediums or additives.

He painted with bristles, specifically flats for the beginning passages and full loads, then switched to sables for his finishing strokes. As the painting progressed, lighter values were located and fuller bodied brush loads of paint were applied. Actual finishing strokes and techniques may have varied from painting to painting. This procedure was likened to a wet on wet approach. The difference was that Reilly’s palette was in order and coordinated to his subject, whatever that may have been.

Among Reilly’s numerous and generous accomplishments was the creation of the “Frank Reilly Grays”. Produced by Grumbacher until the 1960’s when they became too expensive to manufacture, these neutral grays were a commercial testament to the logic and success of “The Reilly System.” With these, the artist could be more organized and flexible in dealing with the various elements of consistently good picture making. Along with these grays, the Anjac Company produced Reilly Gesso Board. These innovations, along with others, were for making the creation of art more than just a hit or miss proposition. Reilly made virtually nothing from these efforts. Ideas and formulations that are a matter of routine for paint manufacturers of today were fundamentally tested, applied, and created by Frank Reilly over 60 years ago.

Reilly also made movies. These were16mm optical sound prints. To describe them as historic would be an understatement. In a resume dated May 1, 1954, he writes: “I have produced 14 motion pictures in full color and sound of other Artists. These films are made with my own equipment and have a definite place in the teaching of art. They are part of a program that will be a living history of Artists at work. In each film you hear the Artist’s ideas and principles, you see views of his studio, his palette, his model and his way of working. In each film you see the Artist start a painting and in stop-action you can follow each brush stroke to the completed canvas. This program is continually going ahead.” Among the Artists who participated in this remarkable stroke of genius were none other than Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell, James Montgomery Flagg, Arthur William Brown, Robert Brackman, John Sloan, John Falter, and William Oberhardt, to name a few.

Frank Reilly’s boundless energy and dedication was sadly cut short in 1967 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, he didn’t live to fully see the ultimate success of his theories and principles. Expansive plans for the Frank Reilly School of Art were underway, with expectations of opening a west coast facility. A newspaper columnist wrote, “Frank Reilly is the number 1 art teacher in America.” His legacy will live on through all artists.

Here the artist is at work on an illustration for the Continental Distilling Corporation’s historical renditions of the city of Philadelphia. The painting, as used in a 1947 advertisement, is shown at right. Committee Examining Re-Cast Liberty Bell, Pass a Stow's Foundry, Philadelphia, 1753.