{design} – Page 273 – { feuilleton }

Czech film posters

I wouldn’t be surprised if these have been linked all over but I hadn’t come across this site before, Czech posters from the Cold War period when promotional material for Hollywood films was home-produced. This makes for some surprising results as with the psychedelic confection for Dumbo shown above. Elsewhere there’s a Piranesian collage for Raiders of the Lost Ark, a peculiar mangling of Richard Amsel’s poster for Hello Dolly, something for Death in Venice which seems to have nothing whatever to do with the film, and plenty of good solid design such as this piece for Pasolini’s Oedipus Rex.

In a similar vein there’s the extensive Polish Posters site which features some really great work from artists like Franciszek Starowieyski.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The poster art of Richard Amsel
• Bollywood posters
• Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• A premonition of Premonition
• Perfume: the art of scent
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters
• Czech book covers

The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Golden Apples of the Sun, the first release on Arthur Magazine‘s Bastet label has been one of my favourite compilations of recent years. Golden Apples was/is one of those landmark music anthologies that appear from time to time and seem to fix a moment perfectly as they capture a sudden flourishing of new music, in this instance the emergence of folk/acoustic/post-Old Weird America bands and artists. Devendra Banhart is one of those artists and he compiled the anthology and produced the cover art. The first pressing sold out but it’s now being reissued and you can order a copy here.

This is more than a compilation–it’s expertly sequenced and paced, like one long, slow flow of a particularly rich vibe. Liner notes are by the artists themselves, paying tribute to each other, all handlettered by Devendra, who also provides artwork on cover, back cover, sleeve, tray and the disk itself.

“Essential.” — Mojo, September 2004

“Sparkling.” — The Wire, July 2004

“8.6 (out of 10): [Its] sprawling landscape presents a persuasive case for the depth of a scene that seemingly sprung up (like mushrooms) overnight.” — Pitchfork, July 8, 2004

Track listing:
1. Vetiver (with Hope Sandoval) – “Angel’s Share” (from the “Vetiver” LP)
2. Joanna Newsom – “Bridges and Balloons” (from “The Milk–Eyed Mender” LP)
3. Six Organs of Admittance – “Hazy SF” (previously unreleased)
4. Viking Moses – “Crosses” (from “Crosses”)
5. Josephine Foster – “Little Life” (prev. unreleased home recording)
6. ESPers – “Byss & Abyss” (from “ESPers” LP)
7. Vashti Bunyan & Devendra Banhart – “Rejoicing in the Hands” (from the “Rejoicing in the Hands of the Golden Empress” LP)
8. Jana Hunter – “Farm, CA” (prev. unreleased)
9. Currituck Co. – “The Tropics of Cancer” (from “Ghost Man on First”)
10. White Magic – “Don’t Need” (from the Drag City EP)
11. Iron and Wine – “Fever Dream” (from “Our Endless Numbered Days” LP)
12. Diane Cluck – ” Heat From Every Corner” (from “Macy’s Day Bird”)
13. Matt Valentine – “Mountains of Yaffa” (prev. unreleased)
14. Entrance – “You Must Turn” (prev. unreleased home recording)
15. Jack Rose – “White Mule” (from “Red Horse, White Mule”)
16. Little Wings – “Look at What the Light Did Now” (from “Light Green Leaves”)
17. Scout Niblett – “Wet Road” (from “Sweet Heart Fever”)
18. Troll – “Mexicana” (from “Pathless Lord”)
19. CocoRosie – “Good Friday” (from “La Maison de Mon Reve”)
20. Antony – “The Lake” (from “Live at Saint Olaye’s With Current 93”)

Previously on { feuilleton }
• So Much Fire to Roast Human Flesh
• Summer of Love Redux

William Rimmer’s Evening Swan Song

Evening: Fall of Day by William Rimmer (1869–70).

This curiously sexless figure is a good example of a work by an artist whose reputation may not have been as elevated as many of his contemporaries but who nonetheless created an image which speaks to future generations. Rimmer (1816–1879) was an American artist who produced a number of pictures along these pre-Symbolist lines. This particular drawing (a blend of crayon, oil and graphite on canvas) became hugely familiar in the Seventies when it was chosen by Led Zeppelin as the basis for their Swan Song label logo (below).

Continue reading “William Rimmer’s Evening Swan Song”

Decorative car mascots

The Hood Ornament Flickr pool features an impressive range of antique car mascots from the age when motor vehicles were emblazoned with mythological motifs and pedestrian safety was an afterthought. Most of them tend to be Art Deco-styled but a few display the florid elegance of Art Nouveau, a design trend that was being eclipsed as car ownership became more popular. I have one of these sphinx mascots, the trademark of Armstrong Siddeley motors for several decades. I always thought the similarity to London’s Embankment sphinxes was a coincidence but it appears not.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Feminine Sphinx
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• The Decorative Age
• Frémiet’s Lizard

San Francisco angels

Miller Blues Band/Mother Earth/Bukka White by Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse (1967).

I already had this piece roughed out before discovering that psychedelic artist Alton Kelley died last month, something that doesn’t seem to have been reported very widely. I posted the picture above last October then in January this year wrote something about San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. But it’s taken me until now to realise that these two things are connected.

The San Francsico poster artists of the Sixties, of which Mouse & Kelley were leading members, borrowed frequently from earlier sources, especially Art Nouveau stylists such as Alphonse Mucha and the Symbolist painters. A recent Thames & Hudson book, Off the Wall: Psychedelic Rock Posters from San Francisco traces some of the more obvious influences but this is one example which seems to have eluded them.

Descending Night and Rising Day by Adolph Alexander Weinman (1914).

The statue that Mouse & Kelley used was titled Descending Night and was, with Rising Day (aka The Rising Sun), one of a pair of symbolic works created by sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman (1870–1952) for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The photos above are from one of the books I linked to earlier, Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts by Juliet Helena Lumbard James. The identities of artists’ models are rarely preserved but in the case of Descending Night we know that one Audrey Munson was the model. And I know that thanks to a well-timed overview of Ms Munson’s career by Silent-Porn-Star.

Weinman later worked his statue designs into these rather fine figurines which became his best-selling small bronzes. These pictures make visible the stars at the feet of Night and the sun at the feet of Day.

left: Adolph Alexander Weinman in his studio with a study for Descending Night in the background; right: Alton Kelley in the Sixties.

Weinman didn’t live long enough to see his work exploited on a gaudy concert poster and given his adherence to a pre-Modern, Beaux-Arts style it’s perhaps just as well. He’s most remembered today for his Liberty design for the American Silver Eagle which also used Audrey Munson as the model. Ms Munson lived to 1996 so I can’t help wonder if she ever saw her youthful figure return on Mouse and Kelley’s poster. The same year as the San Francisco Exposition she played an artist’s model in Inspiration, a film by George Foster Platt which is only notable now for being the first American non-porn film to feature a nude woman. She stripped off again a year later for Rae Berger’s Purity. Audrey was 76 in 1967 but something tells me she that her free spirit would have identified with the Summer of Love more than many others of her generation.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Evanescent City
• Family Dog postcards