Phase IV (1974). It’s been a thrill recently poring over the Saul Bass monograph, Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design by Jennifer Bass & Pat Kirkham, a large volume that weighs a ton and is as revelatory about the career of a great designer (and his wife and frequent collaborator, Elaine Bass) as [...]
For a taste of the unalloyed strangeness of the past you have to bypass the fine art and cultivated histories and look to the ephemera. The Frolie Grasshopper Circus (1898) is an uncredited booklet for American children made to promote Quaker Oats, and it does so in a manner far removed from today’s bland and [...]
Apiphobia (2011) by Anonda Bell. A couple of exhibitions opening this week for those in the New York area. Hive Culture: Captivated by the Honeybee is at the Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill where 18 artists present works inspired by our favourite pollinating insects: Painting, prints, sculpture, photography and video are featured, by artists Jennifer [...]
A couple of gorgeous pieces by French sculptor Edouard Martinet who creates insects and other animals from car and motorcycle parts, kitchen utensils, old typewriters and similar detritus. These are so good I’m surprised his work hasn’t already done the rounds of all the sites which favour this kind of sculpture. I covet that mantis. [...]
Signe de poussière (1980). Selections from an ink-and-watercolour series by Jean-Pierre Velly, Bestiaire Perdu, or Lost Bestiary, created from 1978 to 1980. Dans mon corps carapacé (1980). Previously on { feuilleton } • Detmold’s insects • Entomologia
Faustine (1928) by Harry Clarke. • This week’s Harry Clarke fix: 50 Watts reposts the Faust illustrations while Golden Age Comic Book Stories has the illustrated Swinburne. • What Goes Steam in the Night is an evening with contributors to The Steampunk Bible hosted in London by The Last Tuesday Society on September 6th: Co-author [...]
The White-Faced Decticus. Edward Julius Detmold’s (1883–1957) skill at drawing animals gave him a great advantage when it came to illustrating Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Aesop’s Fables, still among the very best editions of those books. Less well-known are his illustrations for Fabre’s Book of Insects (1921), a guide by naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre. Bud [...]
I seldom try origami these days despite an enthusiasm for it when I was younger, but I still like to see how people are developing the artform. These tessellation designs are part of a sub-genre of abstract paper-folding that’s a long way from the traditional Japanese animal shapes. The examples here are by Ray Schamp [...]
Three Seekers (2009) by Kelly Louise Judd. • Kevin Sessums talked to Elizabeth Taylor in 1997 about Tennessee Williams, her AIDS activism and related matters. Other related matters: Catholics lead the way on same-sex marriage and Mahatma Gandhi was in love with a German body-builder named Hermann. • Cray porn (the computer, that is) at [...]
Century of Progress. While the web has given many artists a visibility they wouldn’t have had in the past, too many artists’ sites are blighted by the dreaded “Artist’s statement” in which people who express themselves visually are forced to try and articulate for the paying customers what it is they’re doing with all this [...]
Looking-Glass House. So here it is at last, this year’s much-delayed calendar design, the sequel to last year’s well-received Psychedelic Wonderland. I’ll get the business stuff out of the way first: would-be purchasers should go to the CafePress shop here while for a better preview of all the artwork look here. Update: This calendar is [...]
Planet. American glass artist Josh Simpson takes the paperweight-as-miniature-world to its logical conclusion by creating series of hyper-detailed spheres he calls Planets. He continues the extraterrestrial theme by also creating his own version of tektite meteor glass (below) embellished with iridescent interiors. His site is worth a browse for other glass artefacts such as his [...]
A page from Johann Theodor de Bry’s Neiw Kunstliches Alphabet (1595) which can be found in a free PDF version here, the scans being taken from a Victorian reprint. The late, lamented Giornale Nuovo featured some of these curious letter designs in 2005. Each capital is embellished with various symbolic figures—Moses appears perched on the [...]
A drawing by Eric Fraser from the Radio Times, 1947. From this Flickr set. • I helped put together the design for the Pursuit Grooves album recently. FACT magazine interviewed Vanese Smith about her work. • One of the books whose interiors I designed last year for Tachyon was The Secret History of Science Fiction, [...]
A Royal Family (Goliath Beetle) (2003) by Joianne Bittle. More insect art. Entomologia is a group exhibition of art incorporating and inspired by insects, on view at Observatory, Brooklyn, NY, from February 26th to April 4th, 2010. There are fourteen artists involved but not all of them have websites showing the work one might expect [...]
Some of it, anyway. This bullet grasshopper was owned by William Burroughs and photographed by Peter Ross as part of a series presenting some of the writer’s possessions. No clues as to who constructed this but I like the way it combines two of Burroughs’ persistent interests, insects and weapons. Via Coudal. Previously on { [...]
Above: gold, silver & enamel butterfly and squid, both by John Paul Miller. More at this Flickr page. Below: Tintenfisch und Schmetterling (Octopus and Butterfly; 1900) by Wilhelm Lucas von Cranach, a master jeweller who liked his octopuses. Tips by Chateau Thombeau and Fine & Dandy (NSFW). Previously on { feuilleton } • Geoffrey Haberman’s [...]
Now that we’re into the dismal weather, sombre views of Old Prague’s splendour seem appropriate. The pages at 360 Cities have a lot of Prague panoramas—76 in all—including many more of the Viriconium-esque Giant Mantis performance I linked to a few years ago. A shame they don’t do this every year. Previously on { feuilleton [...]
top row: The Division Bell by Pink Floyd; A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay. bottom row: London Calling by The Clash; Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. The Royal Mail follows its series of British Design Classics postage stamps with a series dedicated to what they call “classic” album covers. The design classics [...]
Large E-Coli. Or art as virus…. Just because micro-organisms can make us seriously ill doesn’t mean they can’t be beautiful. Luke Jerram‘s glass renderings of some of the most deadly examples are on display at the Smithfield Gallery, London, until October 3rd. The sculptures were designed in consultation with virologists from the University of Bristol [...]
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