Robert Bishop (artist)
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Robert K. Bishop (1945 - 1991) was an American bondage artist, often credited as The Bishop or simply Bishop. Born in Michigan, he has been compared with John Willie and described as the "Rembrandt of bondage art".
His work has been published extensively in bondage magazines, especially those of Centurions Publications and the bondage publisher House of Milan. His work was known for being very detailed and vivid.
His main theme was extremely tight and/or reinforced bondage that showed its subjects straining against their restraints, often as part of a predicament bondage. The bondage depicted often involved elaborate harnesses and gags designed by Bishop.
Bishop's illustrations were mostly in black and white pen and ink, with spot use of airbrushing for shading. His work makes much play with the contrast between pale skin and black restraints and latex garments, and with the use of shading to imply shiny rubber textures and musculature. His colour illustrations were mostly for magazine covers, due to the economic constraints of bondage magazine production. He also drew in a softer pencil style, with subtle use of pencil shading.
Although almost all of his work depicted women in bondage, he also produced some series of female dominant images, and a few male bondage images, some of which are now displayed at the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.
He also illustrated a series of novels by F. E. Campbell with pencil drawings produced under the pseudonym "Ashely". Bishop also produced the Fanni Hall series of damsel-in-distress bondage comics.
In addition to his many illustrations in bondage magazines, his art was showcased in a number of dedicated magazines published by House of Milan and Lyndon Distributors Limited.
He committed suicide at the age of 46.
His work has been extensively circulated on the Internet, and originals of his pictures are now collectors' items.
[edit] Collected illustrations
- Bishop On Bondage (series of magazines) (House of Milan, 1984)
- Bishop: The Art of Bondage (series of magazines) (Lyndon Distributors Limited, 1993)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Robert Bishop remembered (note: page contains drawings of nudity and fetish imagery)
- Short bios of several fetish artists, including Robert Bishop (note: page contains drawings of nudity and fetish imagery)
