Béla Bartók caricatured

bartok.jpg

One of my favourite 20th century composers and I’ve always liked this 1934 caricature from the BBC’s Radio Times magazine, reprinted a few years ago during the Proms season. I’ve searched in vain for the identity of the artist in the hope of finding more work in this style; the “R” monogram is undoubtedly a clue. The picture also turns up on a few Bartók websites uncredited. If anyone knows the answer, please leave a comment. Meanwhile this page has some examples of more recent portraits.

Last in Line by Light Syndicate

ls1.jpg

Last in Line is the debut album by Manchester band Light Syndicate and the CD packaging is something I put together after being asked to rescue a design which wasn’t quite working. I kept the band’s original idea of black trees on a red background but substituted their drawing with an adaptation of a 1910 folk tale illustration by Reginald Lionel Knowles. Knowles’ name is an obscure one today, his most visible work being the florid endpaper design which the Everyman Library used on their books up to 1935.

Last in Line is available locally from today (I guess that means Piccadilly Records) and nationwide from January 12th.

ls2.jpg

ls3.jpg

ls4.jpg

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive

Rockwell Kent’s Moby Dick

kent1.jpg

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!

kent2.jpg

kent3.jpg

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The book covers archive
The illustrators archive

Peacocks

peacock1.jpg

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.

peacock2.jpg

Abstract design based on peacock feathers by Maurice Verneuil (1900?).

peacock3.jpg

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

Let’s get physical: Bruce of Los Angeles and Tom of Finland

bruce.jpg

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.

tom.jpg

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