Interview with Gary S. Zaboly
AS: How long have you’ve drawn for publications and when were you first asked to commission an illustration for a book?
GZ: My first commissioned illustration came in 1972, a gouache painting entitled DUNBAR’S MASSACRE, for Burt Garfield Loescher’s THE ST. FRANCIS RAID, volume four of his series, THE HISTORY OF ROGERS’ RANGERS. Since then my work has been published fairly steadily, even while I worked in the downtown rat race for 15 years as an art director. I quit the field in 1987, and devoted myself full-time to historical/western/military illustration and writing.
My interview with Alamo artist Gary S. Zaboly which was conducted in January of 2005.
AS: When did you become interested with the Alamo?
GZ: Like many of my generation (the Baby Boomers), my interest in the Alamo can be traced back to the DAVY CROCKETT AT THE ALAMO episode on the DISNEYLAND TV show in February 1955. I was only four at the time, but I vividly reMember it, especially the Mexican soldiers massing below the walls and climbing up those strange ladders. Later that summer the Alamo became even more compelling to me after my mother took my brother and me to see THE LAST COMMAND, in Manhattan’s Uptown Theater. That was yet another watershed moment for me: something about that film, and that version of the battle, profoundly connected with me as even the Disney version had not. I clearly recall following Mom down the isles of an A & P Supermarket after seeing the movie, and being in something of a trance, stunned by what I had just seen. Of course, when John Wayne’s THE ALAMO arrived in 1960, its release generously heralded in newspapers and magazines (especially LIFE), it proved one more extremely influential Alamo experience. I reMember going back to see that film at least four times on its first release, and at least as many times upon its 1967 re-release, on both occasions in the palatial Loews 175th Street Theater.
AS: Have you been drawing since you were little? You have a great talent at it and you are discussed as having captured some very dramatic Alamo scenes in your artwork. How many Alamo pieces do you think you have drawn?
GZ: Yes, I still have many old Alamo drawings and paintings I did during my pre-teen and teen years. Just seeing an Alamo film in the movies or on TV used to trigger a small flood of illustrations from me, mostly in pencil, fountain pen, or ball point. After seeing THE ALAMO on its 1967 re-release, for instance, I did about three dozen pieces in colored pencils and watercolor, trying to recapture the sequence of the battle, its action, and the rich hues of the Todd-AO film. That year I also sent two small watercolors to the Daughters at the Alamo, who put them in their scrapbook, and I sent others to an Alamo garrison descendant, also in Texas, with whom I engaged in a correspondence.
Many early influences other than movies helped feed my Alamo obsession, especially such illustrated children’s books as Olga Hall-Quest’s marvelous SHRINE OF LIBERTY: THE ALAMO, Robert Penn Warren’s Landmark Book, REMember THE ALAMO! excellently decorated with pen and ink drawings by William T. Moyers, and William Weber Johson’s THE BIRTH OF TEXAS. One of the better illustrated works was the “comic” feature, “Texas and the Alamo,” in the thirty-five cent Classics Illustrated Special Edition of 1958, BLAZING THE TRAILS WEST. John Severin’s drawings were realistic and dynamic, and reflected considerable research for the time. They still look great!
Estimating the number of Alamo pieces I have done over the years, since childhood, is tough. Perhaps 400-500, for a rough guess.
AS: How long have you’ve drawn for publications and when were you first asked to commission an illustration for a book?
GZ: My first commissioned illustration came in 1972, a gouache painting entitled DUNBAR’S MASSACRE, for Burt Garfield Loescher’s THE ST. FRANCIS RAID, volume four of his series, THE HISTORY OF ROGERS’ RANGERS. Since then my work has been published fairly steadily, even while I worked in the downtown rat race for 15 years as an art director. I quit the field in 1987, and devoted myself full-time to historical/western/military illustration and writing.
AS: Say, how many times have you’ve visited the Alamo? Have you looked through historical archives, etc. to help you with the accuracy in your artwork?
GZ: I’ve visited the Alamo on three separate trips, the first time fairly late in life, at 41, in 1992. Although I own a number of volumes containing collections of printed documents of the Texas Revolution, I’ve not yet gone through any Texas archive. However, I’ve been fortunate in that many of my Texas friends, such as Kevin Young, Steve Hardin, Geroge Nelson etc., and non-Texas Alamo buffs such as Craig Covner and Joe Musso, have been extraordinarily generous in sharing copies of important archival documents with me. Another goldmine has been the vast holdings of the New York Public Library, which contain much about the Alamo. From that collection I’ve gleaned a considerable number of transcriptions of “new” contemporary accounts that I intend to put between the covers of a book someday.
AS: Any idea of when us Alamo fans might get a book from you that has all of your Alamo pieces?
GZ: I regret to say that I lack the sufficeint vanity necessary to produce a book about my own artwork. I’m something of a workaholic, and take the greatest joy in simply doing the work. Once it’s done, I like to get on to the next project. If there might one day be any book devoted to my Alamo art, or any other works of mine, I will have to leave that in the hands of someone else.
A big thanks goes out to Mr.Zaboly for taking part and his artistic contributions to the Alamo field are most appreciated!
~Wade