Jean-Gabriel Domergue

Art, Fashion

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Jean-Gabriel Domergue – Came across this dandy cat’s work in a survey of art deco illustrators. The appeal lies in the mix of foxiness, style, and flamboyant draftsmanship. Also, they evoke many appealing associations: Degas, the decadent verve of Parisian poster art, and the lux, velvety pin up art of Rolf Armstrong.

Details are sketchy. He studied under Giovani Boldini, was a coveted society painter, organized many famous how to buy vicodin on the street Parisian galas and soirees, designed couture fashion, and was the curator of the Jacquemart-André Museum – a man of his time having the time of his life. Galerie de Souzy has some biographical information and offers some of his lesser work for sale. There is a small museum at his family estate in Cannes. The monograph  Jean-GabrielDomergue, l’art et la mode by Gérard-Louis-Soyer is hopelessly scarce.

Le Macchine di Munari

Design

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Illustration from Bruno Munari’s Le Macchine di Munari, which also includes diagrams and helpful descriptions of a lizard-driven engine for tired tortoises, a mechanism for sniffing artificial flowers, a humiliator for mosquitoes, a machine for playing the pipe even when you are not home, a machine for seeing the dawn before anyone else, and a tail wagger for dogs.

Bruno Munari’s work was described by one critic as as “a playful revolution” – perfectly put. It is a rabbit hole to a realm where the tweaking of adult conventions and the stimulation of children’s imaginations meet, mingle, draw, type, play, and get wonderfully, absurdly, heartwarmingly weird.  (A collection of his work can be viewed here,  click on the “+” to reveal images.) Munari himself summed up his approach perfectly: lucidity, leanness, exactitude and humor. Compass points worth following, surely.

His ‘n Hers Set

Books, Design

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I’ve had a yen for melodramatic Douglas Sirk-y entertainments of late, so accordingly I just happily burned through Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Scored a nice, cracked, loose, hardbound reading copy – burgandy cloth, yellowed pages – pleasure to hold, pleasure to read. Gloomy, doomy, weepy, overwrought, etc, etc.. the tops. So last night I’m putting it away on the bookshelf when I notice double paperback versions of Madam Bovary… hurm? Turns out to be a his n’ hers set – bought separately before my wife and I married and nicely reflective of our aesthetic predilections. Also, just cool seeing Emma Bovary rendered in the prevailing sultry graphic modes of the day.

Illustration Guide Art: Henry Yan

Art

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Henry Yan’s work invigorates a cliche – the notion of rendering as releasing a figure from its background. As technique, it’s thrilling – the wipes, the smears, the lifts – so much nuance teased out from a thin scrim of supple vine charcoal. Yan’s process is so evident, so dynamic that his work always seems to be in the process of making itself, which is what makes it so satisfying as art.

Yan began his art education in China. Eventually he moved to the United States where he studied at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, where he is now a faculty member. These selections are from his book Henry Yan’s Figure Drawing: Techniques and Tips. His site, here.

Squeaker score

Design

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Walking in our neighboorhood, daughter lingers over a box of books left out for free, picks this out and declares she’s taking it home. Good eye, squeaker, good eye.

Illustration Guide Art: Howard Forsberg

Art, Design

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Herewith, a new short series, featuring art from old illustration guides. They have such a distinctive character that they form, I think, something of a lost genre. What defines them, and what I find so appealing, is their distinctive balance of looseness and rigor – suspended as they are between sketches and finished works.

The selections above are by Howard Forsberg. Forsberg was a commercial illustrator in the 50’s and 60’s whose clients included Coca Cola and Budweiser as well as magazines like Colliers and Woman’s Day. He also taught painting at the mecca of classic illustration techniques – the Famous Artists School in Connecticut (a subject of posts to come.)

More selections in the days ahead.

Maripolarama

Art, Fashion, Music

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What a dandy little art book/scene document/memento thingy. Maripolarama is a collection of Polaroids taken in the late 70’s and early 80’s by Maripol. Her (single – natch) name contains a multitude of très fabuloso personas: Model; art director for quintessential 80’s designer Fiorucci; Madonna’s friend and her stylist during the original, classic, “Like a Virgin” period (we have her to thank for the rubber bracelets); producer of the legendary new wave art scene flick Downtown 81; and on, and on… she’s less a person that the essence of the New York post punk new wave fashion scene in human form.

Maripolorama is her raw candid, exuberant diary. It’s not really who’s in it that makes it so compelling, though. It’s how young and unguarded everyone is, how genuine and sincere they are in thier goofy exhibitionism. The group shots are especially revelatory – before they went on to become stars, icons, flameouts, poseurs, and tragedies they were all weirdo pals dressing up and running around the glittering big city.

Everything’s Archie!

Music

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My older daughter in is the midst of a full fledged multi-media obsession with the Archies, sparked by a week long fever I had for the song Feelin‘ So Good (S.K.O.O.B.Y.D.O.O) – as rad a side of bubblegum pop as you could hope for. Now it’s repeated spins of entire Archie albums, Archie comics, and lately, the Archies TV show from the late 60’s for which the songs were originally written.

And what do you know? Mostly the stuff’s great. The story of the band is interesting enough – formed by Brill Building savant and Monkees architect Don Kirshner, with vocals by Ron Dante, producer for my erstwhile employer – Barry Manilow – during his peak period of superstardom. The songs are mostly fantastic – sweet sides of sunny sunshine AM pop with a teeny, buy vicodin san diego tiny garage bite. As for the comics, the story there is about original artist Dan DeCarlo, who also worked on Millie the Model, Sherry the Showgirl and created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, and the sadly forgotten Jetta the Space Girl. DeCarlo was also a consummate pin up artist. Shabbily treated by the industry, his legacy has been secured mostly by younger artists he inspired, and his work is lavishly documented in the book Innocence and Seduction. More on DeCarlo here, surely, later. And the show. I dunno. Junk really. Art’s janky, voices annoying. But Jughead teaches you a new dance every episode. And the songs. They’re great. Enjoy:

Feelin’ So Good (SKOOBY DOO):

Melody Hill:

Bicycles, Rollerskates and You:

Sugar and Spice:

 

The Liquidator

Design, Music

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Score! Boundless delights here – from the great spy, bossa nova soundtrack (with a killer Shirley Bassey vocal, check the opening credits here), to the cover collage itself (by pulp, buy vicodin in the uk movie poster and advertising art titan Bob Peak.) The movie itself, a second rate In Like Flint like spy spoof, so far has proved elusive….

Till then, then…

> Transmissions

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Advertising and upstate-ing, until next Wednesday….

Claes Oldenburg, Colossal Boots at the End of Navy Pier, Chicago, 1967, Sketch

The Hourglass and the Egghead

Culture, Fashion

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It should be no great surprise that Marilyn Monroe slinks around the pantheon here now and then. And I’ve long harbored a particular fascination with the period surrounding her marrige to Arthur Miller. I mean, anyone looking for a rich core sample of American society, celebrity, high & low culture, etc., could do a lot worse. Recently the New Republic ran a review of a new bio of Miller assessing the notion that the Monroe marriage shattered Miller as a writer. Absorbing cultural analysis in its own right, the review also reminded me of the singular style of the images recording that surreal union.

Uppercase Magazine #3

Art, Design, Fashion

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The clue to what distinguishes Uppercase Magazine lies in its motto “A magazine for the creative and curious”  It’s the “curious” – It accounts for the joyful, inclusive sense of collaboration and sharing that pervades the whole shebang. The magazine reads like a conversation between like-minded folk riffing on the impossibly cool thing they’ve drawn, thought, photographed, collected, discovered, etc. No lofty curatorial snobbishness or hipster veneration of the mindlessly shocking or willfully ugly for these cats – just a democratic spirit and a celebration of beautiful things.

Another thing – the magazine, as a project and physical object, is the very embodiment of what it celebrates.  It works on a collaborative publishing model, and is designed and produced with great care and craft. Feels great in the hand. The three covers so far are stunning in their graphic impact. Folks seem keen on it too. The first two issues are sold out and subscriptions now begin with the third. The whole Uppercase venture, gallery, books, blog etc… seem of all of a piece. Well worth it. Explore here.

(Oh, and – given my affinity for the venture, I’m proud to say they’ve found room for my own contribution to it. For issue three I wrote an article exploring the radio documentaries of the classical pianist Glenn Gould, not only in terms of his own career but as a manifesto for the insatiable cultural omnivore. As you can see from the preview above, they were kind enough to include an accompanying illustration, which was a great excuse to paint one of Gould’s pop cultural obsessions, the fetching Petula Clark.)

In For The Kill

Music

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I know…. it’s just so obvious. But yet, but yet… It seems every year there is one retro synth confection before which I stand helpless and silly-struck. Sally Shapiro last year or so, Neon Neon before that, Baxendale, etc, etc, now this. La Roux. Perfect. Three singles. Big in England. They all sound exactly the like the cover of “In for the Kill” looks. Enjoy.

In For the Kill:


Doris….

> Transmissions

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An old collage from years and years ago, recently found in a neglected folder of old art mementos… Given that the transmitter is down again due to advertising gales, it will have to do as a placeholder until posts resume. Which will be soon, perhaps tomorrow, maybe Thursday, and will certainly feature Trip to Tulum, the gobsmacking graphic novel by Federico Fellini & Milo Manara. Till, then, then.

Cheever Country

Art

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Frequent shots of Cheever lately… reviews of Blake Bailey’s recent biography hinted at a life where every phase – Manhattan writer, the suburban squire – turned out to a role propped up by a booze soaked frame of artificiality and self loathing. Like this – Cheever would walk would out of his Manhattan apartment every morning, dressed like any other Madison Avenue executive, join fellow salary men in the elevator and head down, then down some more, to the basement of his own building, and strip down to his boxers and sit down at his typewriter to write. Seriously? The sheer oddness (and Cheever-ness) of the whole scene left such an indelible impression that I wanted to re-read his stories in it’s wake… So I’ve been nursing the familiar well stocked orange doorstop with the silver “C” until I came across this sharp little jem. It’s the mass market paperback of Cheever’s second collection – the one that made his reputation. Magic! It’s like one end of a tin cup telephone with the other dangling back in the 50’s, somewhere in Cheever country. Light, tight, and springy in the hand, musty and yellowed with age, a brazen scene of urbane decadence on the cover – the aesthetics of the book an echo of the era – formal, even in sin.

Passing Strange

Music

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Last year’s musical highlight, bar none. The best kept secret in songwriting genius, Afro-baroque pop smarty pants Stew took a bright bow in the klieglights of Broadway for his debut autobiographical musical Passing Strange. The Tony nominated show, a massive critical success (see here, and here) has been superbly filmed by Spike Lee. The film is now available nationwide on cable pay-for-view as the premiere offering of Sundance Selects’ Video on Demand service buy cheap vicodin online (available on Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox and Bright House) beginning August 26th. You. Must. Watch. This. Featuring gospel raveups, formative stabs at California hardcore, a heart-wrenching song about getting stoned with your choir director, musical pastiches of bohemian Amsterdam and German anarchist industrial agit-prop (on Broadway!), all in the service of a supremely moving story about the search for the meaning of art in life. Once more – Must. Watch.