Jon Savage – Page 9 – { feuilleton }

A profusion of Peake

Bellgrove, young Titus and Barquentine by Mervyn Peake. Case designed by Robert Hollingsworth.

I’d thought about posting the covers of my boxed set of Gormenghast paperbacks a couple of years back when there was a flurry of blogospheric attention being given to Penguin cover designs…thought about it then never got round to it. The reason for doing so now is twofold: firstly I’ve been re-reading the books, and secondly some Gormenghast-related news emerged this week which gives this post an additional relevance.

Fuchsia by Mervyn Peake.

The set of Peake paperbacks which Penguin published in 1968 (and their subsequent reprints) were the first editions of Peake’s trilogy which I encountered so I can’t help but regard them as the ones, the only copies I could countenance reading. That may change, however (see below). I’ve no idea how scarce the boxed edition is but the books are reprintings from 1970 so I presume Penguin put out a boxed gift set to make the most of Peake’s posthumous success. I always liked the presentation which is the standard Penguin Modern Classics format of the period, it leaves to you how much you want to regard the books as works of fantasy or simply novels of a rather grotesque and highly imaginative reality. Titus Groan‘s sketch of a glowering and thoroughly unglamorous Fuchsia was a daring choice for a cover intended to lure a newer, younger audience to Peake’s work. The drawing says a great deal about the author’s unsentimental attitude towards his creations; compared to the florid and often delicate covers of the fantasy books being published by Ballantine in the late Sixties (a series which included the Gormenghast trilogy), it seems shockingly unpleasant.

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Queer Noise and the Wolf Girl

Two recent pieces of work which were being created at the same time so they share some similarity of style (and the same baroque flourish). Queer Noise is a music-related event taking place in Manchester (UK) next month. Music journalist Jon Savage will be leading the discussion and some may recognise the event title as relating to his Trikont CD compilation Queer Noises 1961–1978: From the Closet to the Charts. There are further details about the event at the MDMArchive.

Designing for gay content can be a fraught business since it’s almost inevitable that someone will disagree with your choices. Best then to abandon any thought of trying to please everyone and follow your own instincts. Making this a riot of pink seemed like a good way to offset the fetishised figure as well as making an eye-catching design. My first impetus had been to try an arrangement of pink and black on white similar to that used by Barney Bubbles in one of his Ian Dury designs. In the end this evolved away from that idea but it was a useful starting point. And while we’re on the subject of pink, there’s a growing backlash against the way the colour is forced on young girls:

Back in the 1800s, most children were dressed alike. Gender differences weren’t really apparent until they could walk, or later: boys and girls both wore dresses or skirts until they were six or so. By the end of the century, as the Ladies’ Home Journal noted, boys’ and girls’ clothing styles began to diverge. According to Professor Jo Paoletti of the University of Maryland, pink emerged as an appropriate colour for boys because it was “a close relative of red, seen as a fiery, manly colour”. Blue was considered better suited for girls because of its associations, in art, with the Virgin Mary. (More.)

Curse of the Wolf Girl is a young adult title by Martin Millar about which I can tell you very little at the moment other than I’ve finished the cover and the book will be out some time in the new year from Underland Press. More about that when it happens.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Coming Out Day
• Over the rainbow
• Queer Noises

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art

Skull Vision by Michael Ayrton (1943).

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art: great title for an exhibition, a shame that it’s all the way down in Cornwall at Tate St Ives.

This group exhibition takes its title from the infamous 1962 book by St Ives artist Sven Berlin. It will explore the influence of folklore, mysticism, mythology and the occult on the development of art in Britain. Focusing on works from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day it will consider, in particular, the relationship they have to the landscape and legends of the British Isles. (More.)

Artists featured include Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ithell Colquhoun, Cecil Collins, John Piper, Leslie Hurry and John Craxton. Among the contemporary artists there are Cerith Wyn Evans, Mark Titchner, Eva Rothschild, Simon Periton, Clare Woods, Steven Claydon, John Stezeker and Derek Jarman. Austin Osman Spare is notable by his absence but then that’s no surprise, the major occult artist of the 20th century never rates more that a passing mention from the art establishment. One nice surprise is seeing Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988) featured in her second major British exhibition this year. (Her work is also present in the Angels of Anarchy exhibition running at the Manchester Art Gallery.) Colquhoun was a contemporary of Spare’s whose work turns up in occult encyclopaedias or overviews of the minor current of British Surrealism but she’s still largely unheard of outside those circles.

The Tate exhibition may be awkward to visit but there’s an illustrated catalogue available featuring contributions from quality writers including Brian Dillon, Philip Hoare, Jon Savage, Jennifer Higgie, Marina Warner, Michael Bracewell, Alun Rowlands and Martin Clark. Michael Bracewell has a piece about the exhibition at Tate Etc while Brian Dillon has an excellent essay in the Guardian connecting John Dee’s mysterious obsidian scrying mirror with some of the works on display.

Untitled by David Noonan (2009).

• Artist of the week: David Noonan
• Ithell Colquhoun at A Journey Round My Skull

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism
• A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman

A design for life

A design for life | Jon Savage on the history of the Smiley symbol: Watchmen, Acid House and beyond.

1 Top Class Manager

1 Top Class Manager is a book bearing the subtitle “The notebooks of Joy Division’s manager, 1978–1980” published this week by Anti-Archivists, Manchester. I’ve been working on the design for this on and off since March although we actually started putting it together this time last year.

Rob Gretton, manager of Joy Division and later New Order, died in 1999 so this is something of a memorial to his work in giving Joy Division the status they have today. Rob’s widow, Lesley, oversaw (and paid for) the production. She and editor Abigail Ward contributed much to my design efforts which underwent considerable back and forth adjustment until we had something everyone was happy with. Some spreads from the book follow below and when I get the time I’ll add larger page views to the book design section of the main site. Music critic and historian Jon Savage wrote the foreword. This was an exciting and fascinating project to be involved, not least for the wealth of rare documentary material which it reveals.

1 Top Class Manager is available via mail order from the book’s website.

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