THE HISTORY OF THE PICTURE OF EVERYTHING

It began in 1997 with a drawing of Spider-Man. Inspired by some of the works of Alex Ross and other comic book artists, artist Howard Hallis decided to try and draw as many superheroes as hd could in one picture.

Soon Howard began adding all the cartoon characters, rock stars, movie stars, space ships, video game characters, fantasy buildings, historical and religious figures and any other type of mythological iconography he could think of. This grew into The Picture of Everything, a work spanning 13 years.

The first 4 sections of the picture were done on 8.5 by 11 inch pieces of regular typing paper, held together by scotch tape. These sections were completed in August 1999. The drawings were done with colored pencils, pens and markers. In 2002 Howard began expanding the picture by making 6 "interior" images of what was going on inside some of the space ships and buildings within the 4 original sections. Realizing at that point that the work was not complete, Howard began doubling the size of the original 4 sections on July 28, 2006. These new sections were drawn on better quality paper, and continued the original image horizontally. The last section of the original drawing of The Picture of Everything was completed exactly four years later on July 28, 2010. The picture continues to grow and will expanded 1/3 larger in size by 2023.

The work has been on display in a few notable galleries and restaurants, including Nova Express Cafe, Highland Grounds, The 1999 and 2000 Coachella Festival, The Backstreet Gallery in Los Angeles, the Klasky Csupo Gallery in Hollywood, and the infamous La Luz De Jesus Gallery.

Howard has been interviewed about the work on the UK TV show Disinformation and the Canadian Broadcasting Company show "The Hour". The piece has been printed in FHM Magazine, The Philadelphia City Paper, and The Canadian National Post . All of these can be seen on the "Shows and Press" page by clicking here.

The work has had a long history online, being a work in progress on the web since 2000. In 2005, The piece received the Yahoo Site of The Day, and was covered in the Blogs Waxing Poetically, Not Yellow Chicken, WTFoodge, Neatorama, Really Good Magazine, Diary of A Restless Mind, and The Fire Wire.