René Gruau

I really liked these images created by fashion illustrator Rene Gruau, who was considered by some to be the fashion illustrator of the 20th century. An exhibition containing his work between 1946-1984 is currently on at the Major Gallery in London.

Gruau originally found fame with his work for Christian Dior (see below images), however I feel the images above seem to be more effective through their simplicity and block painted colours. Compared to fashion illustration now they are striking in their lack of detail, as well as the top image not even including any type of clothing. 

The only thing that frustrates me about images like this is that they are so simple they look like they took a matter of seconds to create (they may however have had years of thought put into them, this is just my surveillance), yet the artist is now being named one of the best fashion illustrators of the 20th century. 

Is there a minimum amount of time that must be spent on a design or a piece of art before it can be considered worth anything?