A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
From Rockwell Kent’s masterful 1930 edition. Would be nice to point to a complete online set of these illustrations but there doesn’t seem to be one. The black and white pictures are from this Flickr set which has a couple more examples.
Update: A (near) complete set of illustrations!
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
• The illustrators archive
Shooting from the hip
| David Thomson on ‘jazz film’.
Le Sphinx Mystérieux (1897).
Charles van der Stappen’s most impressive sculptural work and one I missed including in this earlier post. Van der Stappen doesn’t seem to have done anything else like this which is a shame as it’s a very striking fin de siècle image, conveying a sense of enigma without resorting to the usual human/animal hybrids; Sarah Bernhardt would have loved the costume. This picture was swiped from Beautiful Century and Mariana took it from the book with the best reproduction I’ve seen to date, Gabriele Fahr-Becker’s Art Nouveau.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• La belle sans nom
• The Feminine Sphinx
• Le Monstre
• Carlos Schwabe’s Fleurs du Mal
• Empusa
The Modern Poster by Will Bradley (1895).
A selection from the NYPL Digital Gallery. There’s more by the great Will Bradley (1868–1962) here.
Abstract design based on peacock feathers by Maurice Verneuil (1900?).
Pavo; Lophophorus (1834–1837).
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Rene Beauclair
• Elizabetes Iela 10b, Riga
• The Maison Lavirotte
• Whistler’s Peacock Room
• Beardsley’s Salomé
Edgar Hayes (Beach) (1957).
Bruce of Los Angeles is a new exhibition of beefcake photos from the Fifties and Sixties at Wessel + O’Connor, NYC, which opens today and runs until December 20, 2008. Bruce’s name is a very familiar one to aficionados of physique photography and I imagine some of these prints will be pretty familiar too. There’s a couple of guys with swords among the selection but as a break from that particular obsession I picked out cutie Edgar Hayes instead.
Born Bruce Bellas in 1909, he was a chemistry professor from Nebraska who would wind up in Los Angeles as the top “Beefcake” photographer of the 1950’s.
He started out there in the 1940’s, shooting bodybuilding contests and met many of his models while working for Joe Weider’s muscle magazine empire, which chronicled the physical culture movement sweeping across America following WWII. Bellas photographed some of the most important figures of this era; bodybuilders Steve Reeves, Ed Fury, and George Eiferman, as well as models such as Joe Dallesandro, Mark Nixon, and Brian Idol.
Physique Pictorial cover by Tom of Finland (1961).
Meanwhile, and a bit closer to home for me, the Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool has been running an exhibition of drawings by Tom of Finland, another very familiar name in the world of gay art and erotica. Twenty-five works are on display there until November 30th.
• From Finland with lust | Mark Simpson looks at the artist’s legacy
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Philip Core and George Quaintance