Fred Lynch
Fred Lynch graduated from RISD in 1986 and has been creating illustrations for a broad range of national clients ever since. He works in publishing, advertising and corporate communications and has won recognition from The Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, Communication Arts magazine, Print magazine, American Artists magazine and The Norman Rockwell Museum. He has been a member of RISD’s Illustration faculty since 1989 and began teaching full-time in 2015. He also taught for many years at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA and chaired his department for more than a decade.
Lynch has won the John R. Frasier Award for Teaching Excellence at RISD and the Carlos Dorrian Award for Teaching Excellence at Montserrat. He has mentored many young faculty members at both institutions. His fine art paintings are exhibited in national and regional juried exhibitions. He lives outside of Boston with his wife, Karen, and two sons, Henry and Owen.
Academic areas of interest
Fred Lynch is known at RISD for teaching the Illustration department’s required concept classes, as well as Journalistic Illustration and Visual Essay. Each summer he teaches in Viterbo, Italy as part of Montserrat College of Art’s Italy Program. There, and at home, he an artist of journalistic illustration, creating site-specific illustrative works on-site and documenting the specifics of time, place and eyewitness narrative. He was selected as a member of the group Urban Sketchers, a worldwide coalition of 100 artists who share their work online and in exhibitions. His on-site works can be found in many books published in the US and abroad.
Lynch’s research and practice in visual journalism has led him to research institutions like The Dowd Modern Graphic History Library at Washington University and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University, as well as the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum in London. He has lectured and taught workshops on the subject in Manchester, England; Paraty, Brazil; and Barcelona, Spain.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
ILLUS 2000-05
VISUAL THINKING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Illustration
ILLUS 3012-01
STYLE & SUBSTANCE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Illustration is an art of visual communication. Style is simply the illustrator's vocabulary. Substance is what the illustrator has chosen to express. The success of an illustration depends on the seamless connection of these two entities. In this course students encounter a wide variety of subject matter drawn from a variety of fields. They are asked to create illustrations with a particular emphasis on the development of a personal vision as well as the successful communication of wisely chosen ideas. Style, its strengths and limitations, is examined in the light of its importance in the marketplace.
This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration majors.
Elective
ILLUS 3904-01
JOURNALISTIC ILLUSTRATION
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this course, students take on the role of the reportage illustrator and visual essayist by developing a series of images in a sketchbook journal, on site, with emphasis on observation, documentation and investigation of non-fiction subject matter. Finished art will be created for a number of the investigative assignments as well as a completed stand-alone visual essay of a self-generated topic. The long tradition of reportage (illustrative reporting) will be examined and discussed, as will the contemporary manifestations of journalistic art in print and in digital formats. Emphasis is placed on authorship, concept, and drawing skill development afforded by working on site are also a focus.
Elective
Spring 2025 Courses
ILLUS 2004-01
VISUAL STRATEGIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Building on the skills and sensibilities developed in ILLUS 2000: Visual Thinking, this course will address a range of strategic considerations important for the articulation of ideas. While emphasis will remain on methods for encouraging conceptual aptitude and innovation, there will be greater focus on specific forms of communication. Practical issues such as the nature of audience and the context for interpretation will be matters of concern, as will vehicles for communication and the handling of media. The basic aim of this course is to enable the student to discover a creative identity and develop an itinerary for upper-class study; its larger goal is to wed communicative purpose to artistic voice.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.
Major Requirement | BFA Illustration
ILLUS 3012-01
STYLE & SUBSTANCE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Illustration is an art of visual communication. Style is simply the illustrator's vocabulary. Substance is what the illustrator has chosen to express. The success of an illustration depends on the seamless connection of these two entities. In this course students encounter a wide variety of subject matter drawn from a variety of fields. They are asked to create illustrations with a particular emphasis on the development of a personal vision as well as the successful communication of wisely chosen ideas. Style, its strengths and limitations, is examined in the light of its importance in the marketplace.
This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration majors.
Elective