Cynthia Von Buhler - Illustration Career

Illustration Career

Not knowing what to do with an art degree, von Buhler considered becoming a stripper, but instead was offered a job at The Art Institute of Boston. Within four years she worked her way up from Administrative Assistant to Director of Public Relations reporting to the university’s president. “AIB was my second home. That experience gave me confidence in all facets of my work." Von Buhler wanted to be a children’s book author and illustrator, but she was having trouble breaking into the field. She focused instead on editorial illustration and began creating dark pastel drawings for magazines like Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and Teen under her maiden name, Cynthia Carrozza. "I was the queen of teen magazine illustration. Anorexia, date rape, and jealousy were constant themes." Eventually, at the request of her clients, her art became stylistically brighter and she started drawing for high-end clients like the Four Seasons Hotel. "The work had no depth. It just wasn’t me and over time it became something I hated. I went through this period of depression. It was very hard and emotional for me."

At this time, in the mid-nineties, she and Adam Buhler a.k.a. Adam von Buhler bought a large purple Victorian house in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. She painted the walls in jewel tones with patterns of climbing vines. “It was a creative turning point for me. When I moved into my house, I needed art for the walls. So, I started making these paintings that were much different than the style I had been working in. That is when I decided not to make any artwork that I did not want to put on my wall.” Von Buhler's three-dimensional paintings have been reproduced and featured in a diverse variety of books, magazines, and newspapers from Rolling Stone to The New Yorker. Her work has appeared in more than a thousand magazines, books, publications, billboards, and CDs. In 1995 she was interviewed about her art in Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait on the Lifetime Network. The expose was narrated by Penelope Ann Miller and also featured interviews with Martin Scorsese and Arch Bishop Rembert Weakland. In addition, a von Buhler portrait of Mary Magdalen which had been commissioned by The New Yorker was featured in the show's introductory graphics. In 1998, she was hired by Viking Publishing to illustrate a children’s book, Nicholas Nicholson's Little Girl in Red Dress With Cat and Dog. This book garnered von Buhler a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which praised the "imaginative debut" and her "distinct sense of time and place." A tarot deck based upon the writings of William Shakespeare, "The Shakespeare Oracle: Let the Bard Predict Your Future,” written by A. Bronwyn Llewellyn, was illustrated by von Buhler and released in 2003. In 2004 von Buhler’s portraits of Madonna and Jimi Hendrix accompanied essays by Britney Spears and John Mayer in the "50th Anniversary of Rock and Roll" issue of Rolling Stone. The painting of Jimi Hendrix was built with a Stratocaster guitar as the singer’s spine and the piece was set on fire. Both paintings are now in the collection of Jann Wenner.