Tuesday 23 September 2014

Mal Ware

Mal Dean
Bluecoat Gallery
Liverpool, 1993 

Catalogue for a retrospective exhibition of the graphic work of Mal Dean (1941-74), designer, cartoonist, artist and jazzer extraordinaire. 









Herbie Goes Bananas: Mal didn't like Mann



Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry



Stan Tracey

Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts, Ray Babbington, Frank Perry, 1972

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Hogarth Goes Pop!


London A La Mode
Paul Hogarth and Malcolm Muggeridge
Studio Vista, London, 1966
Artist Paul Hogarth was a descendent of William Hogarth, well known chronicler of 18th century London's high and low life, and inherited his predecessor's skill at capturing the people of the capital at work and at play. His drawings possess a swiftness, capturing a moment or a face in the crowd before it slips away into the hubbub of Swinging London.
He teams up with Malcolm Muggeridge, the recognizable Catholic curmudgeon from the infamous BBC 'debate' on Monty Python's Life of Brian, though previously a bit of a lefty and former British spy, who here supplies a dry and detached text, occasionally satirical and with some interesting observations of the bustling metropolitan life.

Hogarth is perhaps best known for his designs on a long run of Penguin Shakespeare paperbacks, where his inky lines have a distinct character. Here he uses mostly pencil, reminiscent of some of Geoffrey Fletcher's London sketches, gathering some familiar places and faces (The Colony Room's Muriel Belcher, the Ace Cafe) with some more unusual angles and social commentary, somewhere between an art student's reportage sketchbook and a child's drawing. I challenge anyone not to be caught up in the lines and energy.

This is Modsville: note top Mod band The Action listed on the poster









Thursday 4 September 2014

Outrageous Fortune

How to Tell Your Fortune
Peter Brent 
Marshall Cavendish, 1974


Mellow Birds is not substitute for tea leaves.