Known for Her Poster Art Serigraphs : Artist Chronicles ‘Extravaganzas of Our Lives’

She has been described as the new Norman Rockwell, but Melanie Taylor Kent insists that her whimsical serigraphs chronicling Christmas on 5th Avenue and the return of cable cars to San Francisco are really quite different.

“Rockwell painted the average person doing everyday things,” Kent pointed out. “My series, ‘America in Our Times,’ shows people doing spectacular things, the extravaganzas of our lives, rather than the everyday routine.”

She does not want to be compared to Grandma Moses, either.

‘Eyes of a Child’

“She painted like a child, while my work is as seen through the eyes of a child,” Kent said.

The first in her series of poster art serigraphs depicting the way America really is in the 1980s showed the Gucci, Ted Lapidus and Van Cleef & Arpels storefronts on Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive.

Her “Let the Games Begin” poster for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics kept collectors busy ferreting out the visual jokes. Kent had sketched in hot air balloonists wallpapering blue skies over the smog, scorekeepers carrying white canes and a pole vaulter whose landing pad was a four-poster bed.

Kent created the official poster for the Statue of Liberty Centennial last summer. Working a year in advance from her imagination and inside tips from master planner David Wolper, she depicted the refurbished lady hoisting her flame aloft in front of a laser show lighting up the Manhattan skyline above a flotilla of tall ships.

In the foreground of the Liberty picture stood 100 readily recognizable immigrants--including Albert Einstein, Fernando Valenzuela, Elizabeth Taylor, Alfred Hitchcock, Dr. Jonas Salk and E. T.--all being sworn in as citizens by Chief Justice Warren Burger.

One of Kent’s hallmarks is her careful research. She makes certain that all historical details in her pictures are accurate, and she visits each prospective site and takes hundreds of photographs of the area from all angles in order to get everything just right in the final drawing.

Once she is certain of historical and logistical accuracy, she adds anachronisms--characters from various eras all appearing in the same picture.

New Orleans’ Jackson Square

Her version of New Orleans’ Jackson Square, for example, shows artists such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Renoir working at their canvasses alongside Andy Warhol and Melanie Taylor Kent herself.

Her Las Vegas and Atlantic City posters feature prominent entertainers who have performed in those cities.

Kent, a former UCLA art major who taught art in the Los Angeles public schools for 10 years, masterminded a mural painting project for minority youngsters and then turned to full-time painting six years ago, selling her work at sidewalk shows.

A year ago her business became so successful that her husband, Bob, gave up his law practice to manage her career from their Encino home.

Kent’s work is mapped out four years in advance. She has commissions to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1987 and the Rose Parade centennial in 1990.

“The latest thing is that I have been licensed by Walt Disney Productions to do a series on Disneyland,” Kent said.

“You know, Disney has a couple of hundred artists on their own payroll, so ordinarily, if they want some artwork, they just ask one of their own artists. I think I am the only outside artist they have ever licensed, besides Andy Warhol, who they let do Donald Duck.”

Visit to Disney World

Kent visited Disney World and looked at models of the celebration planned for the 15th anniversary of the Florida amusement park before she created her serigraph.

Some 200 copies were bought by Disney, and 700 others will be sold through the galleries that usually carry Kent’s work. As with most of her serigraphs, the galleries sell them out before they even put them on display.

Her signed serigraphs are priced at $750 upon release, but usually soar to as much as $3,000. For the time being, Kent is hanging onto the original watercolors on which the serigraphs are based, but she figures she would have to ask at least $50,000 to $100,000 apiece if she sold them.

But wealth is not her goal.

“I did it to become famous,” she said. “With original paintings, the only people who are going to know about you are the people in one gallery. With print editions, you go all over.”

‘Rockwell painted the average person doing everyday things,” Kent pointed out. “My series, “America in Our Times,” shows people doing spectacular things, the extravaganzas of our lives, rather than the everyday routine.’