Ted CoConis

CoConis began working independently as a fine artist in 1980. He noted in various interviews that he felt it was time to do his own paintings and have control over his creative decisions. Since that time, he and his spouse and creative partner, Kristen, have spent several months each year in France and of late also in Greece, where he produces sketches en plein air. Returning with the drawings to his studio in Cutler, Maine, or Cedar Key, Florida, he meticulously brings the figures to life on his canvas by painstakingly using oils and pastels or creating graphite drawings.

During this period CoConis also provided illustrations for film posters, a number of which received Academy Awards, and record album covers for popular and classic performers and orchestras including Della Reese, Doris Day, Itzhak Perlman, Eugene Ormandy, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Some of the most celebrated/famous/iconic are those listed below. His earlier work with Jim Henson and the Muppet Show (1974), led to CoConis being asked to illustrate the movie poster for Labyrinth (1986).

He illustrated a number of children's books, including the 1971 Newberry Award-winning “The Summer of the Swans” by Betsy Cromer Byars and “The Golden God, Apollo” by Doris Gates. He created the covers for such well-known books as Nelson Algren’s “A Walk on the Wild Side” (1960), “Ada, or Ardor” (1969), one of Vladimir Nabokov's masterpieces, William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride” (1973), and A.C.H. Smith’s “Labyrinth” (1986). CoConis also provided interior illustrations for some of James Michener's novels published in Reader's Digest condensed books, Texas and Alaska being among these.

While working with Chaite, CoConis became connected with well-known accounts; he built up a reputation within the industry as a talented illustrator for major magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest as well as for book covers and story illustrations, movie posters, and album covers. Having developed a considerable reputation, by the mid-1960s CoConis was able to establish himself as a freelance artist and work out of his own studio in CT.

In the early 1950s, CoConis transferred to the Sixth Army in San Francisco as an illustrator and started doing freelance work. His work attracted the attention of Al Chaite who was associated with a notable commercial art studio in New York City, and CoConis accepted a full-time position with the studio.

The son of immigrants, CoConis's mother recognized and encouraged her son's artistic talents from an early age. He was awarded a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago while still in grade school. In 1942, with the advent of WWII and at the young age of 15, he joined the US Air Force, having altered his baptismal record to do so. After receiving an honorary discharge two years later, he enrolled in Chicago's American Academy of Arts, only to then join the U.S. Merchant Marine a year later.

Constantinos "Ted" CoConis (born 1927 in South Side, Chicago, Illinois) is an American illustrator and painter who worked on many children's books, including the 1971 Newbery Award-winning The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Cromer Byars, and The Golden God, Apollo by Doris Gates. He is the creator of well-known movie posters, book covers, and magazine and story illustrations, for which he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. In 1980, he left the world of illustration to pursue a career as a fine artist.

After returning stateside, an Air Force Colonel with whom CoConis had worked earlier encouraged him to apply for a position in the publicity department of the Fifth Army in Chicago. There, he created magazine covers, brochures, and recruiting posters for the Army. Later in his career, he was commissioned to create the cover illustrations for the handbook that outlined major programs being pursued to equip the army of the 21st century. The US Army and Air Force both commissioned paintings that now hang in the Pentagon.