{psychedelia} – Page 73 – { feuilleton }

Fillmore sealife

Country Joe & the Fish by Wilfred Weisser (1968).

A pair of sea-themed psychedelic posters from a small collection here. Most of the examples are familiar faces but these two stood out for me, especially the octopus one by Wilfred Weisser which I hadn’t seen before. The figures in Bob Fried‘s poster below look like they may have been borrowed from Walter Crane or a later Victorian illustrator.

Update: For the record, Bob Fried’s figures are indeed by Crane, an illustration for Spenser’s Faerie Queene from The Studio magazine, 1896.

Canned Heat by Bob Fried (1967).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Max (The Birdman) Ernst
• Taking Woodstock
• Dutch psychedelia
• Family Dog postcards
• Octopulps

Heinz Edelmann, ‘Yellow Submarine’ Artist, Dies at 75

Kaleidoscope: the switched-on thriller

I’ve not seen Jack Smight’s 1966 caper movie for years, and don’t remember much about it beyond Maurice Binder’s kaleidoscopic title sequence. But I like this collage poster, a suitably frenetic piece for one of Hollywood’s many attempts throughout the 1960s to capitalise on modish fashion. I can’t find a credit for the designer so if anyone knows who was responsible, please leave a comment.

This Polish poster, on the other hand, is the work of Witold Janowski who successfully combines the film’s title with its playing card theme. Too arty and cerebral for Hollywood (No girls!…no guns!) but that’s how it is with all those great Polish poster artists.

Update: the US poster was by the great Bob Peak.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Robing of The Birds
• Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930–2009
• Dallamano’s Dorian Gray
• Czech film posters
• The poster art of Richard Amsel
• Bollywood posters
• Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• A premonition of Premonition
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters

The art of Robert R Bliss, 1925–1981

Standing boy pulling ropes (1962).

The chiaroscuro above looks like a photo print but is actually a painting. I’ve seen Bliss’s name mentioned a few times before but he remains rather difficult to track down online, most of the visible works being on auction sites. What there is consists mostly of young men in swim suits, to a degree which seems like an idée fixe given the lack of nudes or variation in the poses.

left: Standing boy with red trunks (1961); right: Boy with oar (no date).

In a career outline on the Leslie-Lohman site there’s this curious paragraph:

Bliss…after 20 years of alcoholism, discovered LSD. After that he completely stopped drinking. His work then completely shifted to colorful landscapes as well as psychedelic visionary paintings.

I’ve not been able to find any of this psychedelic work at all. If anyone knows of any, please leave a comment.

Update: Added a few more examples of his male studies.

Seated Boy (1950).

Swinging Boy (1959).

Yellow Shirt (1963).

Kneeling Male Athlete (1964).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

International Times archive

The entire run of Britain’s first underground/alternative newspaper. Incredible. IT was never as flashy as Oz but ran for longer and arguably had the better contributors, among them William Burroughs. One notable feature was an avant garde comic strip, The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius, written by Michael Moorcock and M John Harrison with artwork by Mal Dean and Richard Glyn Jones. Heavyweight contributions to magazines tend to get reprinted, however, what I enjoy seeing in archives such as this is the ephemera which can’t be found elsewhere: adverts, reviews and illustrations like the one below. The site is a bit slow and it would have been good to have individual issues as PDFs but it feels churlish to complain. More archives like this, please.

Via Jahsonic.

Illustration by Stanley Mouse (1969).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Realist
• Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others
• Oz magazine, 1967-73