House of Harrington

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Curtis Harrington.

House of Harrington is a short documentary from 2008 about the late filmmaker Curtis Harrington which has just been posted to YouTube by its makers, and by a curious coincidence this appearance occurs in the week of Dennis Hopper’s death. Harrington gave Hopper the lead in his debut feature Night Tide (1961) at a time when the actor was ostracised in Hollywood after a falling out with director Henry Hathaway. Hopper’s diligent performance in Harrington’s film, a low budget horror, is a long way from the histrionics one usually finds in works of this sort and is a good reason to seek it out.

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Marjorie Cameron in The Wormwood Star.

Also in Night Tide in a wordless role is the enigmatic occult artist Marjorie Cameron who drifts around looking spooky and mysterious. Cameron had earlier appeared with Harrington in Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), he as Cesaré the Somnambulist from Caligari, she as Aleister Crowley’s Scarlet Woman. That encounter led to Harrington making her the subject of one of his experimental shorts, The Wormwood Star in 1956. I’ve wanted to see this film for years, if only to sate a persistent curiosity, and House of Harrington contains a few tantalising glimpses. With luck it may turn up on YouTube (or even DVD) in the future.

Lastly, Automat Pictures, the makers of House of Harrington, also have a lengthy filmed lecture in their channel, Queer for Fear, which “explores gay and lesbian subtext in the horror film, and examines the intertwining of queer history and monster movies.”

• House of Harrington: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Previously on { feuilleton }
Curtis Harrington, 1926–2007
The art of Cameron, 1922–1995
Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally

Weekend links 16

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Sumer Is Icumen In but you wouldn’t have known it today, it being cold and wet, O my brothers. The picture above is the work of David Owen whose Ink Corporation does a splendid job of updating the iconography of the folk music world. Via Electric Eden.

• Biting the hand that feeds: designer Jonathan Barnbrook’s contribution to the Biennale of Sydney takes a dig at the whole enterprise. The art market is impervious to criticism (or shame) but the gesture is an amusing one.

Emanuel Schongut’s book covers of the 1960s and 1970s on the artist’s own Flickr pages. Via A Journey Round My Skull.

• Owen Freeman on illustrating William Burroughs. Related: Reality Studio interviews Victor Bockris.

• RIP Jack Birkett, Derek Jarman’s Caliban and the Pope in Caravaggio. And RIP Dennis Hopper, actor, director and photographer.

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“Sea Nettle” (1873), a costume design by the Mistick Krewe of Comus. From this BibliOdyssey posting of New Orleans Mardi Gras designs.

• Chris Summerfield’s surfer boys at Lulu.

• Homotography also has a Tumblr page.

The Ghost Box Study Series Singles.

• More 3D projection on buildings.

John Foxx interviewed at FACT.

Song of the week: Ineffect (1989) by Material.

The Sapphire Museum of Magic and Occultism

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Cover design by Pamela Colman Smith for The Tarot of the Bohemians by “Papus” aka Gérard Encausse (1910).

The Sapphire Museum of Magic and Occultism says it’s been around since 1999 but I don’t recall having come across it before. Among a variety of fascinating rarities is this gallery section devoted to some of the less well-known illustrators of occult or occult-related books from the late 19th and early 20th century. Included there are two substantial galleries of work by Pamela Colman Smith, artist of the world’s most popular Tarot deck. Many of the scans are high-quality and, like the pictures at Golden Age Comic Book Stories, seem to be taken from the original printings. A great site.

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top left: WT Horton; top right: Cecil French.
bottom left: Althea Gyles; bottom right: M Bergson MacGregor.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
The art of Julien Champagne, 1877–1932
The art of Pamela Colman Smith, 1878–1951
The art of Andrey Avinoff, 1884–1949
The art of Cameron, 1922–1995
Austin Osman Spare

A Love Craft: Art Inspired by Monsters, Madness and Mythos

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Painting by Matthew Buck.

I’ve linked in the past to previous shows at Observatory, an arts and events space in Brooklyn, NY, so I’m very pleased to be contributing to their forthcoming exhibition, A Love Craft: Art Inspired by Monsters, Madness and Mythos, which takes HP Lovecraft’s work as its theme. Other participants will include Aeron Alfrey, Esao Andrews, Matt Buck, Paul Carrick, Melita Curphy, Mike Dubisch, Bob Eggleton, FuFu Frauenwahl, Cyril van der Haegen, Dan Harding, Stephen Hickman, Joshua Hoffine, Kurt Komoda, Dieter Van der Ougstraete, Greg Ruth, Johnny Ryan, Andrew Scott, Allison Sommers, and AJ Wagar.

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Wilbur Whateley from The Dunwich Horror (1989).

Prints of four of my Lovecraft-related works will be on display including everyone’s favourite rendering of Wilbur Whateley’s terminal moment from The Dunwich Horror. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to see my ink drawing of R’lyeh at a large size. I’m also told that prints of various works will be available for purchase but you’ll have to either visit the exhibition or contact Observatory for further details.

A Love Craft opens on Friday, June 11th at 7:00pm and runs to July 23rd, 2010.

Previously on { feuilleton }
The monstrous tome
Lovecraftian horror at Maison d’Ailleurs