Easter 1951 - C. F. Tunnicliffe (1901-1979)
Easter 1952 - S. R. Badmin (1906-1989)
my world and welcome to it
Easter 1951 - C. F. Tunnicliffe (1901-1979)
Easter 1952 - S. R. Badmin (1906-1989)
Everything MUST be CHANGED!
And NOW ––– or SOONER!
Everyone knows: Dettol is yellowy-brown in colour and smells like a hospital.
FACT!
It is absolutely NOT this colour... and it does NOT smell of 'Lavender & Orange Oil'.
As American novelist Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945) observed:
"All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward."
There are days when I totally despair of the rank bonkerness with which our media is now infested!
A display currently on show at
the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) 'mentions' (as a historical fact,
please note) that the popular seaside entertainment, the Punch & Judy Show,
has – over the years – opted to substitute the play's original 'Devil' puppet
with one modelled on the features of hated public figures including Adolf
Hitler, Margaret Thatcher and Osama bin Laden.
So?
Well, that story has now been
re-presented as the V&A promulgating the monstrous proposition that
Thatcher was as evil as Hitler and bin Laden and, as a result, that the museum
ought to have its funding taken away and that those responsible for
exhibition-label-writing should be flogged, naked, through the streets of
London!
What utter whiffle and piffle!
You can't possibly learn from history if you hide or deny it!
Anyway, here's Mrs Thatcher (or, rather, her 'Spitting Image' alter ego) as I accounted her at the Tate Gallery at their 2010 exhibition, 'Rude Britannia'.
Even when they're no longer with us, our Mothers are ever-present in our memories...
Back in print after ten years: a fabulous celebration of fantastic illustration: The Art of Ian Miller; a book crammed with 300 astonishing images of graphic brilliance to which I had the great privilege of contributing an Introduction.
As I wrote (in part) back in 2014, and as I still passionately believe:
"A good illustrator may capture the essence and detail of author’s work, transforming word into image, but a truly great illustrator transports us into the silences between sentences, evokes the possibilities between paragraphs, illuminates the shadows that lurk in the turning of a page."
Welcome to Ian Miller's amazing and disturbing world of flying fish, walking trees, floating cities, mechanical warriors and creatures from the worlds of Tolkien, Lovecraft, Bradbury and Peake not to mention the darkest recesses of your nightmares!
18 February: HAPPY PLUTO DAY!
A Short Note on the ART of LOVE…
The brilliant American artist, J. C. Leyendecker (1874-1951), celebrated for his memorable poster and advertising illustrations, spent his career depicting idealized images of the sexes that were redolent of the spirit of the 1920s. That imagery, for his generation, served as archetypes of heterosexual masculinity and femininity. But while a nation adored his work – and sought to emulate the style and glamour of the Leyendecker men and women – the creator lived a closeted life common to so many gay men and women of that era.
Today, his work has undergone a process of homoerotic decoding and, on this Valentine's Day, I'm sharing three of his classic paintings: 'The Butterfly Couple' (1923) and its romantic usage as a magazine advertisement for Kuppheimer Good Clothes, and two covers for The Saturday Evening Post (March 1913 and 1934)...
Alongside these ladies and gents, I give you a re-imagined amalgamation of Leyendecker's craft (together with appropriate Evening Post lettering) made in 2010 by James Blah as a Valentine’s Day card for his boyfriend.
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
– A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, scene 1
Let's remember J. C. Leyendecker for his astonishing art while celebrating the fact that we live in a time when, for the benefit of all humanity, Cupid is increasingly – and thankfully – being "painted blind".
Yes, I admit it: I am a Disney-geek. And, yes, I love Disney's 1959 animation masterwork, Sleeping Beauty, now celebrating its 65th Anniversary – Blimey! Was I really 10-years-old when I first saw it? – but I am more than a tad appalled by this particular merchandising money-spinner...
The marketing pitch runs thus (my bold italics for emphasis):
"True love of pin-collecting conquers all with this series of mystery pins celebrating the 65th anniversary of Walt Disney's 'Seeping Beauty'. Each box contains two randomly selected pins from a possibility of ten different designs featuring the classic cast. Collect them all to assemble a Maleficent dragon silhouette."
Now, the price for two "mystery pins" is £14, or £7 each, meaning that the cost for a complete set of ten would be £70 – except that, since you have to buy the badges sight-unseen, there's a strong likelihood that you'll end up with at least a few (and possibly quite a lot) of duplicates before being able to assemble your 'Maleficent dragon silhouette.'
So, yes, the set is a clever design and, indeed, looks pretty cool, but I really hope those crazy Disney pin-punters will, in this instance, consider choosing abstinence over collector's obsession!
But, hang on... I've just remembered: when Sleeping Beauty was first released, it proved an expensive box-office failure, so maybe Disney are still trying to recoup those 65-year-old losses!