American inferno | David Vann on the malign magnificence of Blood Meridian.
Category: {books}
Books
Netherlands decorated books
left: Over kunst en kunstenaars (1923); right: Over literatuur (1924).
A few examples from a collection of gorgeous Art Nouveau and Art Deco cover designs.
The books cover the period 1893–1939 and contains bindings in the Nieuwe Kunst and Art Nouveau styles by contemporary artists working in the Netherlands such as Jozef Cantre (1890–1957) and Jan Toroop (1858–1928). The collection is particularly strong on P.A.H. Hofman’s designs.
left: Tziganen (1924); right: Rond de wereld (1931).
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
Dalí in Wonderland
I’d only seen one or two of Salvador Dalí’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland before but you can see the complete (?) set here. These date from 1969 when Dalí was well past his prime as an artist but they’re still worth a look to see how he tackled each chapter, using the skipping girl motif from earlier paintings as his Alice figure. The attraction of the Alice books for the Surrealists is no surprise; Max Ernst produced a rather enigmatic series of Alice-themed lithographs while André Breton had earlier made Alice the “Siren of Stars” in the set of Surrealist playing cards he designed in the 1940 (below). I’d imagine there are other connections I’ve missed; leave a comment if you know of any. (Thanks to Charity for the tip!)
For more Dalí, here’s something I neglected to link to a while ago, the legendary Dalí meets Disney short, Destino.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Virtual Alice
• Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar
• Charles Robinson’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Humpty Dumpty variations
• Alice in Wonderland by Jonathan Miller
• Dalí and Film
• The Illustrators of Alice
• Surrealist cartomancy
A life of rhyme
A life of rhyme | Robert Chalmers meets the great John Cooper Clarke.
Beardsley at the V&A
This battered item is my copy of the V&A guide to the landmark Aubrey Beardsley exhibition held at the museum from May to September 1966. That exhibition introduced Beardsley to a new public and made his work very trendy for a while, helped by the Beardsley-styled sleeve of the Beatles’ Revolver album which was released the same year, and a general resurgence of interest in fin de siècle style. Aside from a rare unfinished drawing, there isn’t anything in the booklet which hasn’t been reprinted many times elsewhere but it does contain an excellent overview of the artist’s career by Beardsley scholar Brian Reade.
The V&A website has gained a new feature recently which allows you to search their collections with either a specific search or a random browse. The results don’t give the kind of high-resolution results which I’d like (unlike the British Museum) but the Beardsley works can now be seen in something like their actual condition, edge of the paper and all. Also present is the above piece of Beardsley trivia, a yellowed sheet of wallpaper manufactured by Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd in 1967. The Deansgate office of Savoy Books was once covered in this stuff but had unfortunately been papered over by the time I arrived on the scene.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Aubrey Beardsley archive