A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Black and white art
The paintings and illustrations of Scottish artist William Strang (1859–1921) were much more typical of their time than the bold drawings in this 1895 edition of Rudolf Erich Raspe’s tall tales. Not all the illustrations are Strang’s work, some are by JB Clark, and there are many more in the book as a whole. Years later, the Gollancz publishing company was based next door to Lawrence & Bullen’s former home at 14 Henrietta Street.
I’ve always liked Victor Vasarely’s brand of Op-Art so this short film from 1960 would be of interest even without the addition of a score, Neg-Ale, by Iannis Xenakis. Considering the stature of the composer the music fails to add much at all so it’s no surprise to read at Ubuweb that Xenakis later withdrew it from his catalogue. Kassovitz’s film is worth watching for Vasarely’s artworks, however, especially some three-dimensional creations I hadn’t seen before.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Escher and Schrofer
I would have posted this by now if it hadn’t been for the recent unpleasantness. Robert Stewart Sherriffs (1906-60) was a Scottish artist who I confess I hadn’t come across before until Nick H (thanks, Nick!) drew my attention to this book at silver-gryph’s eBay pages. Sherriffs’ illustrated edtion of The Life and Death of Tamburlaine the Great by Christopher Marlowe was published in a limited edition in 1930.
The drawings are black-and-white throughout, and of such a quality you have to wonder why Dover or someone hasn’t done a reprint. The general approach owes much to the usual suspects, notably Aubrey Beardsley and Harry Clarke, but there’s a development of these earlier styles that you also find in the work of Ray Frederick Coyle and Beresford Egan. In addition to the full-page plates Sherriffs also provided a number of insect vignettes, the last of which is a Death’s-head Hawkmoth.
Discovered via the GoetheZeitPortal, these illustrations for Faust by German artist Paul Konewka (1841–1871) date from 1865, although the copies here are from a later edition. Konewka was a silhouette cutter so while these may look like ink illustrations they’re actually paper silhouettes displaying a formidable level of detail and complexity. Whatever the technique, the story itself is immediately recognisable from the characters even if none of the more dramatic scenes are represented. There aren’t many books you could treat in this fashion since the story has to be almost universally familiar; Shakespeare would be an obvious candidate—Konewka subsequently produced illustrations for A Midsummer Night’s Dream—fairy tales (like Arthur Rackham’s Sleeping Beauty), and also Lewis Carroll’s Alice books come to mind.
The copies shown here are from another shoddy Google scan at the Internet Archive but you do get to see all the pages. The Goethe site has better copies of the illustrations.
The Dancer (1967) by Antony Little.
My thanks to Sweet Jane this time for alerting me to her post about a series of Beardsley-inspired illustrations from 1967 by Biba designer Antony Little. The Wandering Jew and Other Stories was the first translation in English of Apollinaire’s 1910 collection L’Hérèsiarque et Cie. I’ve known about this book for a while but few of the illustrations have been on view anywhere until this post. There are eight in all, each of them very adeptly capturing different phases of Beardsley’s drawing style, from the spare black-and-whites to the more detailed renderings seen in his later work. The drawing below is another in the series from a post of Callum’s which also includes a favourite of mine by Beresford Egan.
Little’s designs, and the prominence of the Biba stores, did much to make Art Nouveau in general, and Beardsley in particular, a crucial component of London fashion in the late 1960s. For more on that subject see this Sweet Jane post featuring yet more Beardsley borrowings and monochrome design, plus Osborne & Little’s fantastic Chinese Dragon wallpaper which made a memorable appearance last year in Only God Forgives.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Aubrey Beardsley archive
• The illustrators archive