Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts

Monday, 5 October 2015

The Horror at the Museum


Old and Modern Master Watercolours and Drawings from the Personal collection of Vincent Price 
Aldis Browne Fine Arts
USA, 1988

When we hear the name Vincent Price, we immediately think 'master of horror', and recall his great performances in films such as The Fly, The Masque of the Red Death, Theatre of Blood, Dr Phibes, Witchfinder General and many others. 

Fewer people know that he was something of a gourmand and was an accomplished cook and food writer.

Fewer people still recognise that he was a noted art collector. Well, I didn't, until I recently chanced upon a small catalogue featuring works on paper from his collection. It's all fairly dull stuff I'm afraid, his tastes having been molded in the stuffy surroundings of Yale and the Courtauld Institute where he studied art history, but I thought I'd show a sample of what a 'man of culture' from his generation hung around his Californian (presumably) pseudo-Gothic mansion.

Vincent was a generous chap and donated much of his collection to establish his own art museum. If you really want to see more, check it out here: http://vincentpriceartmuseum.org/

Personally, I'll stick to his films.


Odilon Redon, The Sacred Heart, c.1895

John Waterhouse, Studies of a Young Woman's Head.

Gustav Klimt, Study for the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, c.1903

Henri Matisse, Self-portrait, c.1905

Pablo Picasso, Harlequin and Nude with Mirror, 1917

Edie Nadelman, Dancer, c.1917

Amadeo Modigliani, Portrait of Schultz Solar.

Oskar Kokoschka, Studies of Trudi Wearing a Cap, 1931

Mark Tobey, Prehistoric Playground, 1953

Thursday, 3 July 2014

The horror... the horror


Horror in Architecture
Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing
Oro Editions, 2013 

An examination of horror and its architectural analogues, including historical perspectives and a dissection of the unease at the heart of the modern project.

Written by a pair of Harvard design graduates turned landscape architects, the text sometimes has the feel of a thesis or academic tract, though it is mostly accessible and the profuse illustrations make an interesting photo-essay in themselves. The juxtaposition of rotten architecture with biological freaks, mullet hairstyles and stills from John Carpenter's The Thing, Army of Darkness and other horror films is most enjoyable, so much so that this little paperback has been enlivening my bathroom reading for the past couple of months. I shall miss it but, you know, binge and purge.